Toyota Motor Corp, theworld's biggest automaker, will freeze plans to build newfactories in Thailand and Russia due to sluggish demandworldwide, Japan's Sankei newspaper reported on Saturday.



Toyota last month forecast a first-ever annual operatingloss, blaming a relentless sales slide and a crippling rise inthe yen for what it said was an emergency unprecedented in its70-year history.



It has also said it would cut capital expenditure and autoproduction to try and cope with tanking global auto demand.



Sankei, citing an unnamed company official, said thesuspension of construction plans for the new factories inThailand and Russia was part of such plans.



Automakers around the world face their toughest businessenvironment in recent memory, caught in a sharp reversal ofdemand as the financial crisis spreads, squeezing credit andconsumer sentiment.



In June, Toyota said it would build a new 150,000units-a-year diesel engine factory in Thailand, which wouldraise its annual diesel engine output capacity to 350,000 unitsin 2010 and create about 700 jobs.



But Japan's top automaker would suspend the plan because ofslumping global auto demand, the Sankei said.



In St. Petersburg, Russia, Toyota began building cars at anew 50,000-units-a-year factory in December 2007.



But it will now freeze plans to build a secondary factoryat the location as production at the existing factory fellshort of its forecast, the newspaper added.