TOKYO: Toyota Motor is cutting its target of producing more than 10 million vehicles this year after suffering a sales drop in key market China amid strained Sino-Japanese ties, a report said last week.

Japan’s biggest carmaker had aimed to top the 10-million-unti mark in what would have been a first for the company, saying earlier this year that it expected global output to hit 10.05 million vehicles in 2012.

But a bitter territorial dispute over an East China Sea island chain has dented Japanese carmakers’ sales in China, the world’s biggest vehicle market, and seen many Japanese firms scale back production in the country.

Toyota’s annual global production was now likely to be 9.8 million to 9.9 million vehicles this year, the leading Nikkei business daily reported. Solid demand in North America and Southeast Asia was not enough to offset the slump in Chinese sales, the report said.

After slashing its China production in half earlier this month, Toyota plans to keep output at plants in the country about 30 percent lower than year-ago levels, the Nikkei added.