Akoi Toyoda arrived in Beijing yesterday night fresh from a tour of the USA, where he held a press conference to express his profound apologies for the number of Toyota recalls in China and beyond. Toyoda believes that the Chinese market is very important to Toyota due to its 20% growth in sales for Toyota last year. During the one hour long event Toyoda apologized four times for the recalls in China which included over 75,000 RAV4′s and last years recalls of over 200,000 vehicles.

Chinese consumers are well aware of the ‘accelerator pedal gate‘ issue that has become known world wide over the past month, although it was expected to effect Toyota’s sales via its two joint venture partners in China, sales appear to be up in January for both Guangzhou Toyota in Southern China, and FAW-Toyota in North East China. Toyota’s goal of selling 800,000 vehicles in the Chinese market in 2010 remains unchanged, and is likely to hit its target despite the immediate issues at hand.

Toyota still remains a relatively small player in terms of automobile sales in the Chinese marketplace, its major rivals such as GM and VW have a larger range of vehicles and have been better placed to take advantage of the government tax cuts during 2010 to encourage sub 1.6L car sales.