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TOKYO, Nov 20 (Reuters) - Nissan Diesel Motor Co , one of Japan's weakest truckmakers, said on Wednesday it veered back into the red for the six months to September as it took huge extraordinary losses on financial restructuring.
Its group net loss for April-September totalled 4.57 billion yen ($37.39 million), compared with a profit of 226 million yen in the year-earlier period.
Hit by a relentless slide in domestic demand, sales fell 1.3 percent to 184.14 billion yen.
Operating profit fell 8.0 percent to 3.87 billion yen, despite continued efforts to cut costs.
The net and operating results were slightly worse than figures reported by the Nihon Keizai Shimbun business newspaper on Tuesday.
For the full year to March, Nissan Diesel expects a net loss of four billion yen, on sales of 370 billion yen. That would mark the first full-year net loss in three years.
Nissan Diesel is owned 22.5 percent each by Nissan Motor Co and Renault SA .
Japanese truckmakers have been suffering from overcapacity in a market that has shrunk due to economic contraction. Nissan Diesel said recently it expects overall domestic demand for heavy-duty trucks at 72,500 units in 2003/04, compared with a previous forecast of 80,000.
In addition to such industry-wide woes, Nissan Diesel is reeling under massive interest-bearing debt, meaning interest payments will continue to eat into income.
To cope with this problem, the truckmaker announced in September a new business plan aimed at cutting such debt by 40 percent to 250 billion yen by March 2006.
And to make up for sluggish domestic sales, Nissan Diesel has said it would strengthen ties with China's second-largest auto group, Dongfeng Motor Corp.
It is aiming to advance further into China's expanding truck market, which is expected to get a significant lift in the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
After falling 5.3 percent a day earlier on the newspaper report, Nissan Diesel shares closed up 2.78 percent at 74 yen on Wednesday.
The Nikkei 225 share average ended up 1.13 percent. ($1=122.21 yen)