Toyota to save GM and Ford? Humble pie time.
GM's Wagoner To Meet With Toyota President Cho This Month
NEW YORK ( Nikkei ) --General Motors Corp. Chairman Richard Wagoner will meet with Toyota Motor Corp. President Fujio Cho when he visits Japan this month, The Nihon Keizai Shimbun learned Wednesday.
Wagoner is scheduled to arrive in Japan as early as May 14.
It is believed that the two men will discuss ways that Toyota can help the world's largest automaker, which has been suffering from sluggish sales, in areas such as safety and environmental technologies. GM Vice President Lawrence Burns, who heads R&D for the automaker, is also expected to attend the meeting.
In 1999, GM and Toyota agreed to jointly conduct R&D in environmental technologies. Pundits say that GM, for example, will be able to catch up in this field if it can incorporate Toyota's hybrid technologies into its small and midsize cars.
Another Toyoto leader is scheduled to meet with Wagoner in Detroit, Michigan, later this month. Shoichiro Toyoda, honorary chairman of Toyota, will be in the U.S. to receive an award from a U.S. engineers' organization and will meet with Wagoner on May 24.
Toyota Chairman Hiroshi Okuda, who also heads the Japan Business Federation, or Nippon Keidanren, has indicated that Toyota is willing to help the troubled GM and Ford Motor Co. to turn around their businesses.
"Because automaking is a symbolic industry of the U.S., we need to consider steps to take," he said.
Toyota is apparently concerned that if industry leader GM continues to struggle and leads to more unemployment in the U.S. manufacturing sector, it could rekindle economic tensions between Japan and the U.S. The major Japanese carmaker hopes to lend a hand in stabilizing the U.S. auto industry by quickly taking the necessary steps.
( The Nihon Keizai Shimbun Thursday edition )
Hell didn't JP Morgan and Merrill raise their ratings on GM in the past 24 hours? The bankers are carefully deconstructing America. The politicians (both parties) are helping. |
