Japan’s Toyota Motor Co. said last Friday it would operate all its domestic plants at half normal volume from May 10 to June 3, citing problems with parts supply following the quake and tsunami disaster.

“As (Toyota) continues to address its production situation in Japan following the disaster, it has decided that vehicle production from May 10 to June 3 will proceed at approximately 50 per cent of normal,” the company said.

Toyota said in a statement it would “decide on production after this period after assessing the situation of its suppliers and other related companies”.

The Japanese giant recently said it would restart work at all its Japanese vehicle-production facilities from April 18 to April 27 at approximately 50 per cent of normal pace, before an annual Japanese holiday through May 9.

“TMC deeply apologises to its customers for not being able to build every vehicle to meet their desired specifications due to limited parts,” it said in a statement.

Toyota said last Wednesday it would temporarily halt production at five European plants for several days in April and May due to a shortage of parts.

The automaker has previously said it will suspend all output operations at most of its 14 North American factories for four to five weekdays later this month.