Shanghai (ZXZC)- Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) said its businesses of China Region and Asia Region have been split in light of the importance of China market and the Asian markets, marking China’s growing significance to the Japanese auto giant.

The decision is part of changes to the executive responsibility and the organizational structure TMC announced on December 5. They are scheduled to come into effect from January 1, 2020.

(Photo source: Toyota)

Along with the change designed for the China Region, TMC has improved its organizational structures through a series of measures, such as establishing business units, restructuring regional headquarters and introducing an in-house company system. The company said they would make leaders closer to the workplace in corresponding region, so as to carry out necessary measures based on swift decision-making.

The latest move signals that TMC is attaching greater importance to China, the current world's largest auto market. For the first ten months of 2019, Toyota saw its global sales climb 1.6% year on year to 8,046,885 units (excluding the sales of Daihatsu and Hino), of which roughly 1.31 million units were delivered in China, up by 7.2% over the year-ago period.

(Photo source: FAW Toyota)

To maintain a rising sales performance, the Japanese automaker is seeking a larger production capacity in China. Japan's Nikkei newspaper reported in August that both Toyota's China-based joint ventures—GAC Toyota and FAW Group—had plans to expand capacity, bringing the Japanese carmaker's total capacity in this country close to 2 million vehicles by 2020.

Driven by the electrification trend that is sweeping China's auto industry, Toyota has reached an agreement in November with BYD, one of leading NEV makers in China, to establish a 50/50 joint venture focusing on the R&D of BEVs. Meanwhile, both parties planned to staff the new subsidiary by offering engineers and R&D-related jobs from their respective companies.

（Photo source: GAC Toyota)

Besides, Toyota has also cemented the tie-up with two Chinese state-owned automaker partners, FAW Group and GAC Group, to jointly research and develop electrified vehicles.

As part of efforts to strengthen mobility service onslaught in China, Toyota Motor (China) Investment Co., Ltd. (TMCI) launched in November a subsidiary in Hainan, which would work on offering high-quality travelling services to the southernmost province of Mainland China.