Recession-hit Toyota Motor Corp, after having accumulated a 164.7 billion yen loss for the period October-December, has projected a net loss of 350 billion yen for the full year.

Citing the plummeting auto sales - particularly in Europe and the US - as well as the strong yen, the Toyota City, Japan-based world's largest carmaker said that the net loss for the year may exceed the previous estimates by nearly three times.

In January, the sales in Toyota's biggest market, the US, fell 32 percent, with the auto industry nose-diving to its lowest since the early 1980s.

Going by the slump in demand, Toyota projects its 2008 operating loss, the first in over seven decades, to be a monstrous 450 billion yen as compared to the company's earlier-estimated 150 billion yen operating loss.

With Toyota's projected losses, the company's top rating AAA from Moody's Investors Service has now been cut to AA1.

Akio Toyoda, the incoming President of Toyota, intends replacing quite a few of the company's top executives, in an attempt to return to profit the company hit hard by the economic downturn.

In order to cut costs, the company plans suspending part of its domestic production for 11 days this month and the next. Moreover, Toyota would also layoff 3,000 temporary domestic workers by March 31, and scrap night shifts at 16 out of its total 75 assembly lines globally.