SYDNEY (AP) — Toyota said Monday it will stop making cars
in Australia by the end of 2017, spelling a final blow to auto
manufacturing in the country, where car companies say high production
costs and tough competition have made the business unviable.
Toyota’s
announcement, which will result in the loss of around 2,500 jobs, was
widely anticipated, coming just two months after General Motors Co. said
it would end production in Australia by 2017. Ford Motor Co. announced
in May that it would cease Australian production in 2016.
All
told, some 6,600 manufacturing jobs will be axed between the three
companies. Mitsubishi Motors Corp. stopped manufacturing in Australia in
2008.
Toyota Motor Corp. said its decision was based on a
combination of factors including the high Australian dollar, the high
cost of manufacturing and competition.
"We did everything that we
could to transform our business," Toyota Australia CEO Max Yasuda said
in a statement. "But the reality is that there are too many factors
beyond our control that make it unviable to build cars in Australia."
Toyota
President Akio Toyoda delivered the news to workers at the company’s
Altona plant near Melbourne, where he paid tribute to 50 years of Toyota
cars being built in Australia.
"To now have to deliver this news
to the very people we have worked so hard with, to the many people who
have supported our production for so many years, is most regretful for
Toyota and, for me personally, simply heartbreaking," he said.
Toyota,
which has been manufacturing cars in Australia since 1963, currently
makes the Camry, Camry Hybrid and Aurion in the country. It will become a
sales company.
Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane said Toyota had
not asked the government for any financial assistance in the lead-up to
its decision.
The government had subsidized auto manufacturing,
hoping to keep the industry alive as it supports tens of thousands of
jobs in other areas including auto parts.
Holden, which is the
Australian arm of GM, received 1.8 billion Australian dollars ($1.6
billion) in federal government assistance in the past 11 years.
Auto
makers in Australia produced about 178,000 cars in 2012, according to
the International Organization of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers.
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