Toyota to shut US- Canada plants for two days next month

TOKYO (AFP) - Toyota Motor Corp. will shut down production at all of its US and Canadian plants for two days next month due to sluggish sales, a spokeswoman said Wednesday.

Production at all 11 factories including assembly, transmission and engine plants will stop on December 22 and 23, although employees will still go to work, spokeswoman Kayo Doi said.

"We are responding to recent conditions on the ground. If we continue to produce, we will have full inventories," she added, but declined to specify the impact on production of the two-day halt.

The company's North American plants excluding Mexico produced a total of 1.636 million vehicles in 2007, she said.

Automakers in the US are being hit by the financial crisis that is spilling into other sectors of the economy including consumption, which accounts for three quarters of US growth.

Toyota's US sales slid 25.9 percent to 152,101 vehicles last month from a year ago.

US carmakers are pleading for a government bailout as fears mounted that they could be headed towards collapse.