Nissan Motor Co. will halt operations in July at one of the two production lines at its main plant in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, cutting back its annual domestic production capacity by 15 percent to 1.15 million vehicles, company sources said Thursday.
Shrinking export profits due to the yen's appreciation as well as a sluggish domestic market have led major automakers to scale down production in Japan. Toyota Motor Corp. plans to gradually reduce its annual manufacturing capacity by 400,000 vehicles to 3.2 million units.
It will be the first time for Nissan to trim domestic capacity since closing a plant in Musashimurayama, Tokyo, in 2001 after Carlos Ghosn took the helm.