CAIRO: Japanese car-maker Toyota has said on Wednesday that it expects a net profit of $9.5 billion in the current fiscal year 2012-2013, backed by surging demand in emerging markets, a press release mentioned. The company has posted today its profit to end of March, falling 30.5 percent to 283.56 billion yen ($3.56 billion), hit by last year's quake-tsunami disaster and record flooding in Thailand. Toyota also forecast operating profit to nearly triple year-on-year to 1.0 trillion yen as consumers opt for small and economically priced vehicles, as well as “green” models, a key segment for the manufacturer. “Our vision is to establish a strong business foundation that will ensure profitability under any kind of difficult business environment,” company president Akio Toyoda said in a statement. “Certainly the last fiscal year was extremely challenging due to the natural disasters in Japan and Thailand, plus the unprecedented strength of the yen,” he added. Toyota was hammered last year by the March 11 quake-tsunami, which caused huge production problems, while the Thailand flooding later in the year sparked supply-chain headaches for firms with plants there, which resumed its production last month. Despite the setbacks, Toyota said it was aiming to boost sales to 8.7 million vehicles globally in the fiscal year ending March 2013. “We expect a great increase in sales mainly in North America and Asia this year, especially as we plan to roll out new models,” Satoshi Ozawa, Toyota's executive vice president, added in the press release.