GM chairman Richard Wagoner will visit Japan for talks with Toyota President Fujio Cho when they are expected to discuss ways that Toyota may work with the world's largest automaker, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun said without citing sources.

The two men are likely to talk about how Toyota can help particularly in the fields of safety and environmental technologies, the newspaper said.

In 1999, Toyota and GM, which had been suffering from sluggish sales, agreed to jointly research and develop environmental technologies.

The scheduled talks will come after Toyota chairman Hiroshi Okuda said his company was ready to discuss such issues with GM and Ford whose business is struggling as foreign makers, especially Japanese and South Korean companies, eat into their market share.

Okuda also heads the Japan Business Federation, the country's largest business lobby also known as Nippon Keidanren.

He said at the time that Toyota could even consider price hikes and tie-ups in the US market so as to help avoid trade friction between Japan and the United States.

"The auto industry is a symbol of the United States. We must consider steps to deal with" the sector's current weakness, he said last month.

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