Mitsubishi, Japan's fourth largest car maker, said it would lay off 1,000 staff workers in its US operations by March 2001.

Two Tokyo truck plants, one in Maruko and the other in Fakatsu, would be closed by March 2003 and the operations merged into a third plant in Kawasaki, also in suburban Tokyo.

The car maker warned it would take a parent net loss of nine billion yen (76 million dollars) for the full year to March, only a partial recovery from last year's heavy losses.

Mitsubishi admitted that it struggled in the past six months."In Japan, domestic market auto sales for the period were seriously affected by a major slump in truck sales," it noted.

"Export volume decreased due to a large drop in shipments to Asian markets," it said.

The firm is expecting to take five billion yen parent pre-taxprofit for the year, with sales at 2,320 billion yen, down by 7.2 per cent.

"Mitsubishi Motors expects the business environment to become increasingly difficult as competition intensifies further with the introduction of new models by other auto makers," the firm said.