A worker makes a final inspection of a Toyota Motor Corp Corolla Axio sedan on the production line of a plant in Ohira village, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan. Japan’s Toyota group forecast yesterday a 22% jump in worldwide sales this year to 9.7mn units, driven by surging demand which may help it regain the top spot in the global auto market. Those figures could put Toyota ahead of General Motors and Volkswagen as the world’s biggest automaker, a title it held between 2008 and 2010 but lost last year after a slump in sales and production. Japan’s quake-tsunami disaster, floods in Thailand and a strong yen took a heavy toll on the auto giant, whose brands include Lexus, Daihatsu and Hino. It topped the global carmakers’ table in the first half of 2012, accelerating past US-based GM and the German auto giant.
