Toyota China car joint venture restarts

Production has restarted at Toyota's joint venture auto plant in China after it was halted for a week after a deadly earthquake struck nearby.

Toyota Motor Corp.'s joint venture with Chinese carmaker FAW Group has only restarted the daytime shift and is taking things "one step at a time" before restarting the night shift, said Paul Nolasco, a Toyota company spokesman in Tokyo.

None of the employees were injured and all family members were accounted for, but Toyota needed to check on the machinery and the well-being of their workers before giving the go-ahead to start production, he said.

The joint venture produces the Coaster microbuses and Prado sport utility vehicle.

Toyota lost production of 380 vehicles over the one-week stoppage, Nolasco said. The plant makes about 80 vehicles a day.

Nolasco noted that the loss is not great for Toyota, Japan's biggest automaker, which makes about 9.5 million vehicles a year.

"We're not in rush to start churning those vehicles out," he said, adding that the company was monitoring possible effects of the quake on the quality of the products.

The factory did not suffer much damage from the quake, but there was a crack in part of the floor in the painting line, he said.