Tokyo Paper: Toyota To Delay New Factories in China

This due to sluggish vehicle sales in the wake of anti-Japan protests over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands dispute, Asahi Shimbun’s sources said.

The two plants were expected to raise Toyota’s production capacity by 40 percent to 1.3 million units.

Reuters reports the same story, but is less definitive than the Asahi which claims as a fact that Toyota “will set a new construction schedule after examining sales trends in China,” and that Toyota “estimates it will take at least a year to regain their previous levels.” On Friday, another Japanese paper claimed that Toyota expects that it would take more than a year for Chinese sales to recover.

Toyota spokespeople were dismissive on Friday and could not be reached over the weekend.

If the slump in China indeed takes longer, the damage would not be isolated to Toyota. For the last three months, other Japanese manufacturers were similarly effected.