Toyota Motor Co. (7203), the world’s best- selling automaker in the first half of the year, is threatening to stop investing in Turkey after a number of employees filed lawsuits against it, the Star reported, without saying where it got the information.
Toyota sent a delegation to meet with officials from Turkey’s Labor Ministry after an employee won 150,000 liras ($83,000) in compensation from a Turkish court for loss of feeling in a finger, prompting about 15 other employees to pursue cases against the company, the Istanbul-based newspaper said.
Toyota had earlier been accused of discriminating against employees who practice the Islamic faith, according to Star.
via Toyota Threatens End to Turkey Investment on Lawsuits, Star Says – Bloomberg.
Sakyra, Turkey (CNN) – Turkey has in the past focussed its trade on Europe, but with Europe’s growing economic woes and a new political era in the Middle East, Turkey is slowly turning its political and economic attention east.
Orhan Ozer is president and CEO of Toyota Turkey. He told CNN’s Rima Maktabi: “Turkey has lots of advantages in respect of the geographical advantages, in respect to the location of the country at the middle of Europe, Middle East – even Central Asia.”
“Also the population is young, they are very dedicated, qualified, experienced and they are very ambitious for their work,” he added
Toyota Turkey exports almost exclusively to Europe – mainly to Germany, Italy, France, Spain and the UK. Likewise, in the first half of 2011, almost half of Turkey’s exports were to the EU. But with an ailing European market and a European Union that refused Turkey as a member, Ankara’s government has looked to new markets – to the east.
“Starting from the republic until the 1990s, beginning of 2000, Turkey was just looking at the West,” said Sabiha Gündoğar, director of the foreign policy program at the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation.
“It is still important but it is not the only foreign-policy goal for Turkey,” he added. “Turkey started to discover, and I can say now it discovered, and is improving its relations with its neighbors, be it the East, be it the more South.”
In 2002, Asia’s foreign direct investment in Turkey totalled $1 billion; in 2010 the number jumped to $18 billion. During a recent visit to Ankara the Malaysian PM Najib Razak agreed with his Turkish counterpart to set a new target for bilateral trade, raising it from its current $1.3 billion to $5 billion.
This Asian-Turkish economic connection is welcomed by big conglomerates like Dogus group, a Turkish firm that focuses on everything from financial services to media operations.
“We are receiving investment appetite from Far East, not recently from the neighboring countries, or the near East, but we are receiving some interest from the Far East, like Korea, Indonesia, India, even China,” says Dogus Group executive vice president Levent Veziroglu.
But Turkey is also reaching out to politically unstable countries in the Middle East. In October 2011, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan led a delegation of more than 200 businessmen on a tour of Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya – countries trying to find stability and help in rebuilding.
“We know the region, we know the culture, we have some historical ties with those countries, so it’s very natural if we see the Turkish economy will expand its limits towards those countries,” said Veziroglu.
via Turkey takes a turn to the East – Business 360 – CNN.com Blogs.
A crippling parts shortage in the aftermath of the March 11 disaster in Japan has hit Toyota Motor’s production in Turkey, too. The company has decided to temporarily halt production at its European plants, including the one in Sakarya. The factory produces the ‘Verso’ and ‘Auris’ models and employs 2,600 workers
The Toyota factory in Sakarya, western Turkey, employs 2,600 workers. AA photo
Toyota Motor has announced the suspension of production in its European plants, including Turkey, due to a serious shortage of parts following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in Japan.
“We will not produce in our Sakarya factory [in northwestern Turkey], in accordance with the decision of Toyota Europe,” said Orhan Özer, the chief executive of Toyota Turkey.
“Most of our parts are supplied by Turkey and Europe, but we are having a supply deficit in the small number of parts that come from Japan,” Doğan news agency, or DHA, quoted him as saying.
The car manufacturer said Wednesday that it would halt European output at five plants between April 21 and May 2, including auto assembly factories in Turkey, Britain and France, as well as engine plants in Britain and Poland.
After the stoppages, the plants will run at limited capacity in May, the Associated Press reported.
Toyota Turkey is working to normalize the supply chain as soon as possible, Özer said.
The magnitude-9.0 earthquake and ensuing tsunami on March 11 destroyed auto parts factories in northeastern Japan, causing severe shortages for Toyota and other automakers. The world’s top automaker had said last week that it would suspend car production in North America in April.
The company’s Japanese plants will start production at a capacity of 50 percent as of April 18. The Sakarya factory produces the “Verso” and “Auris” models. Toyota’s production target for 2011 stands at 95,000 vehicles.
The Toyota factory employs 2,600 workers, while the parts industry in the region is estimated to employ about 6,000 more.
Big losses in the pipeline
Speaking to AP, Mamoru Kato, an auto analyst from Tokai Tokyo Securities, said that if the supply crunch continued, Toyota could incur “big losses” in the April-June quarter.
“The company simply cannot manufacture cars due to parts shortages. In North America and Europe, Toyota procures almost all engine parts from Japan. Suspended production in Japan and North America is a big blow to Toyota,” he said.
Toyota stock closed Wednesday slightly higher at 3,285 yen in Tokyo trading. The shares lost over 8.6 percent since the March 11 disaster.
In an analysis released Wednesday, three economists from Roubini Global Economics said challenges in substituting key Japanese inputs would raise global prices of those inputs and related final goods, particularly electronics and automobiles.
“Upstream Asian producers that compete directly with Japan will likely exercise more pricing power, commensurate with the degree of specialty of their product, provided they have adequate inventories,” said Michael Manetta, Arpitha Bykere and Adam Wolfe in their report. “But the boost to their export revenues may be offset by weaker global demand and lower production relative to 2010.”
In another development, Daihatsu Motor, a unit of Toyota, announced it would restart its Osaka and Kyoto plants on April 18, resuming production at all its factories.
Japanese carmaker Toyota is facing a new US investigation into complaints of steering problems in its Corolla model.
The investigation is expected to be opened on Thursday and will involve an estimated 500,000 vehicles.
It is already facing an investigation into whether it was quick enough in recalling cars over problems involving accelerator and braking systems.
Toyota said on Wednesday that it was looking into complaints of power steering problems with the Corolla.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) says it has received more than 150 complaints about possible steering problems in the 2009-2010 Corolla.
Toyota sold nearly 1.3 million of the models worldwide last year, including about 300,000 in the US.
Toyota is facing another US investigation into whether it was quick enough in recalling millions of cars over problems involving accelerator pedals and braking systems.
It has denied any cover-up and says it will “co-operate to provide all the information they have requested” on the US inquiry.
The saga began in the US with reports that accelerator pedals were getting caught under the floor mats.
The Japanese car giant began recalling vehicles potentially affected by that problem in October last year and Toyota then redesigned the mats.
The floor mat issue affected a number of vehicles in the US, but not in the UK.
Later, separate acceleration problems were found to be caused by the pedal sticking.
This was then followed by the recall of about 436,000 hybrid vehicles, including the Prius model, over brake concerns.
Toyota Motor Co. (7203), the world’s best- selling automaker in the first half of the year, is threatening to stop investing in Turkey after a number of employees filed lawsuits against it, the Star reported, without saying where it got the information.
