Interview With President of Toyota
FOSTER: Workers at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant are taking shelter tonight. They fled for cover just a few hours ago, when at 7.1 magnitude earthquake northeastern Japan. It was an aftershock of the massive quake which caused major damage to the plant in the first place. There are no reports of any fresh damage and a tsunami warning has now been lifted. CNN's Martin Savidge was in Tokyo when the latest tremor struck. Here is his report.</s>MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (On camera): This was an aftershock you definitely felt here in the Tokyo bureau. It struck at around 11:32 p.m., local time. And began, as many of the aftershocks we felt here. It starts with a gentle motion, but this one clearly, quickly intensified. And you knew that it was stronger than most, in fact it turns out it is the strongest aftershock to be felt since the March 11 9.0 earthquake here. Immediately warnings went out for the possibility of tsunami, up along the northern Pacific Coast of Japan. And as the anxious moments passed by, there were other alerts that went out as well. The tsunami warnings, though, were quickly then pulled down after it was apparent that there were no waves that came ashore, at least nothing that was potentially destructive. There have been reports, though, of minor injuries. There were also reports of power outages and there have been reports of some fires, most of which have been extinguished. But the other great area of concern, the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant, TEPCO said that it did in fact have its employees evacuate to an earthquake safe building. They were there for some time, but they now have gone back to their positions. They also say that the functions of keeping those reactors under control were continued throughout it all. Government officials say that they have seen no signs of an increase in radiation. They also say that the reactors remain in a stable condition, and they point out that there appears to be no leaks with their containment vessels out there, as well. But for many it was an anxious night here, in Tokyo, and across all of northern Japan. In Tokyo, I'm Martin Savidge, back to you.</s>FOSTER: Well, the Dow dropped sharply after hearing the news of the quake. Alison Kosik is at the New York Stock Exchange. Alison, so what impact did it have there?</s>ALISON KOSIK, CNN FINANCIAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Max, you are right about that. We did see that knee-jerk reaction right after news hit about the earthquake in Japan. The Dow was down as many as 98 points. The VIX, that is the fear index, it jumped about 4 percent. But then the market started to come back after the tsunami warning was lifted. And no major damage or injuries were reported. Still, though, we are seeing that the market continues to be skittish about Japan and worried about even the slightest possibility of further supply disruptions. Investors also remained worried about how long it will take for Japan to recover. Also there is other news that investors are focusing on today, including the rate hike in Europe. We also got some good news on retail sales and jobs here in the U.S. We found out that new claims for unemployment benefits fell slightly to 385,000 continuing a trend of slow but steady improvement for the labor markets. So, some good, some bad; and pretty much a split decision so far with about two hours to go in the trading day, Max.</s>FOSTER: OK, Alison, thank you very much indeed for that. Well, the original 9.0 magnitude quake did major damage, of course, to Japan's biggest carmaker. The president of Toyota said it could take several months to get production levels back to normal. In a moment you can hear our exclusive interview with Akio Toyoda. When the quake hit the company was just putting tough times behind it. In 2009 Toyota began a series of recalls of its vehicles. In all, 14 million cars and trucks were affected. In April 2010, U.S. authorities handed the company a $16 million fine to settle claims Toyota hit-claims that Toyota hit-hid, despire (sic)-hid defects and that was despite this tearful apology from Toyota's chairman in February.</s>AKIO TOYODA, CHAIRMAN, CEO, TOYOTA MOTOR CO.: You and your colleagues, across America, around the world, were there with me.</s>FOSTER: In February 2011, after a long study, U.S. regulators said faulty electronics were not to blame for reports of unexpected acceleration in 22 cars. Akio Toyoda gave this exclusive interview to CNNMoney.com's Poppy Harlow, just after Toyota announced a technology partnership with Microsoft.</s>POPPY HARLOW, CNNMONEY.COM CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Was it a hard decision for you to come make this announcement with Microsoft, in the wake of what is happening in Japan?</s>TOYODA (through translator): Well, honestly speaking, I debated over whether it is appropriate for me to leave Japan at this time or not, because there have been so many victims of the earthquake and tsunami. And the company, itself, is in a very difficult situation. So, I wondered if it is really right for me to leave Japan. But I personally felt that, of course, it is necessary for us to work very hard, realizing reconstruction of Japan, as quickly as possible. But at the same time what is needed most is to create some hopes and promises for the future. And when I considered what I, and also Toyota, can do to offer that hope for the future, I thought, talking about this integration of IT industry and the automotive industry, as the one, we have been announcing that Microsoft would be one very important thing. Because we will be able to talk about what sort of a great car that we can produce in the future and that is the thought that brought me here to Seattle.</s>HARLOW: After considering the human toll of the tsunami and the earthquake, what did you think it would mean for Toyota?</s>TOYODA (through translator): Toyota's employees were all safe, but unfortunately three of other people working at dealerships, lost their lives and if you include the families, over dozens of people lost their lives. And, of course, many lost their homes as well.</s>HARLOW: I'm so sorry. When you look at the long term impact of the earthquake and tsunami, on Toyota, as a global company, what do you think the long-term impact is going to be to Toyota? We know, we just heard this week that you are not picking up production again, in Japan. So what is the impact going to be?</s>TOYODA (through translator): As you already know the car industry is an industry with a very broad and large supporting industry, leading into it. And in some of the companies constituting our supply lines were located in that affected area, had their operations disrupted, too. Counting the number of different part numbers it affected 500 of them. And we are assessing each one of those 500 parts items, in terms of that status of stock and to bill at the resumption of supplies. And fortunately, as of today we have the prospect of being able to formulate the production plan, by the end of April. Not, probably, going back to 100 percent of the operations.</s>HARLOW: Do you envision having to shut down any production in Japan, permanently, moving production elsewhere. Is the situation that dire?</s>TOYODA (through translator): Although our plans in northeastern Japan have been affected by this disaster, but currently we all have the prospect of achieving recovery of those production operations in that part of Japan. And therefore, at the moment, we have no plan of relocating the production activities going on in Japan to other parts of the world. In terms of overall capacity, already out of 7 million units we produce worldwide 4 million out of that 7 million are produced outside of Japan in overseas operations. And therefore we would like to maintain 3 million which is currently produced in Japan, to continue to be produced in Japan.</s>FOSTER: Well, you can hear the second part of our exclusive interview with Akio Toyoda tomorrow, here on QUEST MEANS BUSINESS. Japan's central bank says it will offer cheap loans to banks affected by last month's earthquake and tsunami. The Bank of Japan says the program is worth $12 billion. It is aiming to help the banks cope if people start withdrawing large amounts of cash. And it is drawing up plans to relax rules over collateral for loans to make lending easier in disaster areas. In Tokyo there were signs of a tentative confidence returning. The Nikkei edged higher on Thursday. Tokyo Electric Power, or TEPCO, which runs the nuclear plant in Fukushima, made gains. Trading ended long before the latest aftershock, which hit at 11:30 p.m., local time, in Japan. Now, standing together against the sex trade, we'll speak to the Body Shop, on how it is fighting human trafficking. Our special week of coverage on the "Freedom Project", continues after the break.