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Toyota Motor Corp’s brand new CEO, Yoshi Inaba, said that the company is targeting a return to profitability in North America as soon as the next fiscal year that will end March 2011. He said that Toyota has completed the process of reducing vehicle inventory to adjust to low U.S. demand and was focusing on steps it can take to reverse recent losses and cut costs.

“There’s hope that we could make it next year, which will be very, very challenging,” Inaba told reporters. ”I realize I set a very hard goal,” he said.

Inaba also said that Toyota is looking to increase market share in the Unites States from the current level of 60 percent. He said that could be done by bringing production of the Prius, Scion or Lexus models to North America.

Toyota’s sales fell off almost 38 percent in the first half of 2009. The U.S. has been the Japanese automaker’s largest market and until recently, it’s most profitable.

- By: Omar Rana

Source: Reuters

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