Tokyo business executives fear bearish Year of Ox

TOKYO, Jan 6 (Reuters) - Japan's top businessmen toasted the new year at a party on Tuesday, but the mood was bleak as the world's No.2 economy hunkers down for a bearish Year of the Ox.

A languishing stock market and the dismal outlook for exporters such as Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) made for dour banter among bankers and chief executives, who bowed and toasted each other at the annual gathering of Japan's biggest business lobby.

"I never expected the crisis to spread this fast, and leave this deep a scar," Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe said on the sidelines of the party, just hours after his firm reported a 37 percent slide in U.S. car sales in December and said it would halt production at some plants. [ID:nT158]

"If you look at the automobile market now, it's very, very tough. We need to proceed with the assumption that this situation could continue."

Other exporters such as Honda Motor (7267.T) and Canon Inc (7751.T) have also been waylaid by a surge in the yen, which threatens to decimate profits from overseas sales.

"A rapid strengthening of the yen brings major damage to Japan's economy," said Fujio Mitarai, the chairman of Canon and Nippon Keidanren, the main lobby group for big firms whose exports drive the Japanese economy. [ID:nT362517]

Mitarai told a news conference following the party that he hoped the dollar would average 95-105 yen this year, after it slumped to a 13-year low against the yen last month near 87 yen.

In Japan, which follows the Chinese zodiac, 2009 is the Year of the Ox. Research company Daiwa Institute has said that "Ox" years have previously been rough ones for Japanese stocks. [ID:nT13560]

If true, that portends a disastrous year for Tokyo equities, as the the Tokyo stock market already booked its worst year on record in 2008.