CRI听力:Toyota Operating Profit Down 52 Percent

Toyota has now posted a 52 percent drop in its quarterly operating profits.

As expected, the world's biggest automaker has not given a revised forecast for the remainder of the year, as it struggles to measure the scope of the disruption after the earthquake and tsunami.

President Akio Toyoda says the company should see a 70 percent increase in output starting next month.

"We've made it possible to bring up production that originally would only start in July or August for now, June. It's the product of incredible hard work by everyone in the field."

Satoshi Ozawa, Toyota's Executive Vice President, says the total impact of the earthquake and nuclear crisis has cost Toyota around 1.37 billion US dollars.

"The impact of the Great East Japan Earthquake comes to 100 billion yen on the operational front, add another 5 billion in losses from the drop in costs improvements, and another 5 billion from other costs and the total impact comes a loss of 110 billion yen."

The massive hit to production will almost certainly mean Toyota will fall behind General Motors and possibly Volkswagen to rank third in global vehicle sales this year.

Toyota has now announced that it will resume its operations in China next month, two months earlier than expected.