The profits of Toyota Motor Corp., Japan’s leading carmaker, soared on a consolidated basis in the period from April through June, thanks to the cheaper yen brought about by the Bank of Japan’s massive monetary easing, a key component of the Abe administration’s economic policy.
Toyota's operating profits climbed 87.9 percent from the same three-month period in 2012 to ¥663.3 billion. Japan's car industry as a whole also benefited from the weaker yen. In the April-June period, a decline in the yen's value helped the nation's eight major carmakers increase their operating profits by about ¥510 billion.
Toyota has revised upward the expected consolidated operating profits for the business year ending March 31, 2014, from the previous ¥1.8 trillion to ¥1.94 trillion. Now that they have been liberated from the shackles of an extremely strong yen, which prevailed during the rule of the Democratic Party of Japan government, carmakers and other export-oriented businesses should make efforts to increase wages and employment.