toyota financial

ECONOMY OF TOYOTA IS JUST DESTROYED....


March 12 (Bloomberg) -- The funding crunch for Japanese businesses is intensifying as foreign-currency financing dries up, forcing larger firms to turn to the nation’s state policy bank for emergency loans, the head of the lender said.
“Not just automakers, but electrical and chip companies, and also other manufacturers, are coming to us in large numbers,” Hiroshi Watanabe, chief executive officer of the Tokyo-based Japan Bank for International Cooperation, said in a March 10 interview. As part of a government program, the bank is lending to “essentially blue-chip firms that are having trouble with cash flow.”
The bank, known as JBIC, has received requests for emergency loans totaling as much as $40 billion since the end of 2008, almost four times its original budget for the fiscal year that ends March 31, Watanabe said. Companies are struggling with a shortage of foreign-currency funding, he said.
Profits at Japanese exporters including Toyota Motor Corp. have vanished as the worst global financial crisis since the Great Depression saps demand for cars, televisions and computers. Toyota, the world’s largest carmaker, said March 3 its finance unit is seeking a loan from JBIC. With bankruptcies rising, the government plans to inspect banks to make sure they lend.
Japanese corporate bond risk is close to a record in Japan today, as measured by the Markit iTraxx Japan index, which shows traders’ perceptions of creditworthiness. It has risen to 555 basis points from 275 basis points at the start of the year.
Toyota, Honda
During the past year, the government boosted JBIC’s budget for lending by about 500 billion yen ($5.2 billion) to 1.6 trillion yen. Since the government allowed JBIC to make emergency loans in December, companies have asked it for between 3 trillion and 4 trillion yen of such funds, said Watanabe, a former vice minister of finance for Japan.