Last Friday, Toyota Motor Corp surpassed US General Motors Corp to become the world's top automobile seller during the January-June period. Sales for Toyota group in the first six months increased 8 per cent to 4,716,000 units, compared to a year before, while GM's global sales were up 1.7 per cent to 4,674,000 units in the same period.

Speaking at a news conference Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe said that despite the difficulties resulting from the quake, Toyota would try to meet its global production target of 9.42 million units by the end of this year.

"We will gauge how to make up for the lost production in due time," Watanabe said. "What's important is being able to figure out how swiftly we can fix the problem and return to normal."

The company was expected to resume partial operations Tuesday after it suspended production at its domestic plants last Thursday.

Other Japanese car maker such as Mazda Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. said today that will resume work on Tuesday.  

Mitsubishi spokesman Tetsuji Inoue said the company plans to announce later Monday whether it will resume production tomorrow.  Suzuki Motor resumed work from today.