Toyota, Honda and Mazda boosted their overseas production in the first six months of 2006, statistics released on Monday by the three major Japanese carmakers showed.

Toyota Motor Corp. said its first-half overseas output increased 12.9 percent from a year earlier to 1,964,374 units, while Honda Motor Co. saw a rise of 8.5 percent to 1,170,601 units. Mazda Motor Corp. said its overseas production jumped 25.7 percent to 165,687 units.

According to statistics, the other two major Japanese car manufactures, Nissan Motor Co. and Mitsubishi Motors Corp. posted a decline in their overseas production at 2.6 percent to 1,016,263 units and 16.7 percent to 295,089 units respectively.

As for export, all five automakers, except for Nissan, was higher in the period from January to June. Toyota's exports expanded 18.6 percent, while Honda's jumped 11.3 percent. Mazda's exports soared 23.2 percent and Mitsubishi's shot up 22.7 percent. But Nissan's exports dropped 7.5 percent.

At the same time, Toyota, Mazda and Mitsubishi boosted their domestic production, with a rise of 8.1 percent, 14.7 percent and 22.2 percent respectively. In contrast, Nissan and Honda declined 20.9 percent and 0.8 percent in domestic production respectively.

Sales in Japan were lower from January to June for Nissan, Honda and Mazda, meanwhile, Mitsubishi's sales was up by 12.4 percent and Toyota by 0.5 percent.

Source: Xinhua