Toyota Boss Believes US Would Bail GM Out

TOKYO, Jan 10, 2006; Reuters reported that Hiroshi Okuda, chairman of Toyota Motor Corp. said that because "GM is a U.S. industry icon it won't leave it if it tumbles into real difficulty".

Okuda, whose company Toyota is widely expected to overtake GM as the world's biggest auto maker in the next year or two, was speaking as head of the Japan Business Federation, Japan's biggest lobby.

"The U.S. government would probably step in to support General Motors Corp. if the world's No.1 auto maker fell into further difficulty", Okuda said.

Running through a list of GM's problems, Okuda noted that its market share has been declining and that it had been so far unsuccessful in its attempts to sell a financial unit.

He also cited a lack of appealing new models.

GM lost more than $4 billion in North America in the first nine months of 2005, reflecting its declining market share and the costs of a painful restructuring.

But GM Vice Chairman Robert Lutz reiterated on Monday that the company was moving as fast as possible to turn itself around and had no intention of filing for bankruptcy.

Toyota produced its 10th straight year of record U.S. sales in 2005, with growth of 10.1 percent.