Toyota Halts Camry Exports to US, Citing High Yen

VOA Breaking News
September 7, 2011 at 5:35 am

Japan’s Toyota Motor Company says it will halt all exports of its best-selling Camry sedans to the United States, relying entirely on its U.S. plants to meet sales demand in that country.

Toyota said this week the move makes “good business sense” because of the rising value of the yen against the U.S. dollar. It is part of a broader strategy to increasingly make the cars in the countries where they will be sold to insulate Toyota from currency fluctuations. The cars are also made in China, Australia and Thailand.

Toyota had already phased out most Camry exports to the United States, where it has been the top-selling car in 13 of the last 14 years. Only a few thousand of the sedans were shipped to North America last year.

Even before this week’s announcement, the Camry had been declared the “most American car” by the website cars.com, which calculates that 80 percent of the components in American-sold Camrys are made in the United States.

America’s Big Three auto-makers based in Detroit have major manufacturing operations in nearby Canada, taking advantage of the North American Free Trade Agreement.