Johannesburg  - German automaker Volkswagen AG plans to cut 400 jobs at its South African plant, news reports said Friday.

Company spokesmen Bill Stevens said the cuts were necessary because of an expected 10-per-cent drop in new car sales this year, the SAFM radio station said.

Furthermore, Volkswagen plans to cut down production around the Easter holidays to cushion drops in export demand.

Volkswagen builds its right-hand-steered Golf cars in South Africa for export.

Tokyo - Toyota Motor Corp's operating loss for the fiscal year 2008 was to expand to 400 billion yen (4.44 billion dollars) from an earlier projection of a 150-billion-yen loss, media reports said Friday.

As Japan's leading automaker is suffering from declining demand and the yen's advance against other currencies, it was expected to incur the first-ever operating loss for the business year ending in March.

It was also expected to report the first net loss since 1963, when it started publishing net results, according to Japan's business daily The Nikkei.

The nation's largest car maker, Maruti Suzuki India Ltd recently announced that quarterly profit plunged by 54.3%, lagging forecasts in the midst of high raw material costs, lower volumes and adverse impact of currency changes.

On Thursday, New Delhi-based Maruti informed that its net profit plunged to 2.14 billion rupees ($43.8 million) in its fiscal Q3 ended December.

The company confirmed that there is a fall by 2.8% in the net sales to 46.26 billion rupees.

Chennai-based commercial vehicle manufacturer and Hinduja Group owned company, Ashok Leyland announced financial results for the third quarter of current financial year.

The company, under the impact of lower sales due to economic slowdown, posted decline of 82.64 per cent in net profit for the Q3 ended December, 2008. It stood at just Rs 21.09 crore in the reporting quarter as compared to Rs 121.49 crore during the same quarter last year.

In a bid to add power to its pr

Stockholm  - The Swedish government Thursday moved to help Volvo Cars, the troubled Swedish subsidiary of US carmaker Ford.

The government said it has given the Swedish National Debt Office the task of negotiating the terms for a 5-billion-kronor (525 million dollars) credit guarantee to Volvo Cars and Ford.