Early in July, Toyota announced its voluntary redundancy scheme, aiming to shed 40% of the 16,477 employees at its manufacturing plants in Thailand. Mr Tanada said 2016 would be a tough year for Toyota, but he expected the industry to recover in 2017. Toyota reported yesterday that the number of workers applying for the programme reached 900, higher than the company's expectation of 800. Toyota posted its highest sales ever in 2012 at 516,086 vehicles, a 78% rise. Mr Tanada said Toyota still maintained its full-year sales target of 240,000 vehicles, down by 9.8% from last year -- marking the fourth successive year of declining sales.

Source: Bangkok Post July 27, 2016 04:18 UTC