Mr Toyoda told the shareholders' meeting that the company had managed to remain profitable through the outbreak, using lessons learned during the financial crisis.

    Drawing on experiences and lessons learned from the global financial crisis more than a decade ago, Toyota will be profitable through the novel Coronavirus pandemic, Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda told shareholders at the annual meeting, according to Automotive News.

    As part of its efforts to help cash-strapped customers, Toyota is easing repayment deadlines for car loans and offering used car rental services, Yasuhiko Sato, the company's Japan sales chief, said at the conference.

    Although it has reopened, carmakers around the world have seen their profits suffer after showrooms and factories were closed because of the outbreak.Toyota and other automakers have sought loans and lines of credit from Banks and have said they will continue to invest in research and development.

    Although Japan has lifted a state of emergency, the outbreak has damaged the business of many small car companies.One of Toyota's suppliers filed for bankruptcy last week.

    "If we cannot win, we cannot support the industry and the country," Mr Toyoda said.We are very different today than we were during the financial crisis."

    Mitsuru Kawai, Toyota's chief human resources officer, said Japan's biggest carmaker would not change its plan to make 3m cars a year in Japan.The company has temporarily closed some of its domestic plants from April to June.

    Toyota had warned that its profit for the fiscal year ending in March would plunge 80 per cent to a nine-year low, with an operating profit target of Y500bn for the year.'The goal is not a plan, but a minimum standard that must be met,' Mr. Toyoda said.

    At a shareholder meeting at Toyota's Nagoya headquarters, the company took precautionary measures to contain the spread of the virus.Staff took participants' temperatures, placed transparent partitions in front of speakers and reduced the number of seats to about a third of their original size.

    Toyota had asked some shareholders not to attend the meeting, which ended with about 360 shareholders attending, compared with more than 5,500 at the previous meeting.The meeting lasted an hour and 20 minutes, making it Toyota's shortest annual meeting since 2000.