Toyota Motor Korea said Monday that it had named Akihisa Yoshida, former vice president at the Japanese carmaker’s Asia-Pacific sales unit, as its new country chief.

Yoshida, 52, studied economics at Hokkaido University and joined Toyota Motor in 1984.

He has held a number of sales positions in Japan, Australia and other Asia Pacific regions.

Since 2011, he was vice president at Toyota Motor Asia-Pacific, a regional sales unit based in Singapore.

Yoshida is set to start his term on Jan. 1.

His predecessor, Tommy Nakabayashi, is expected to return to Toyota’s head office in Japan, according to the Korean unit.

Toyota has seen an increase in global sales, but its Korean unit suffered from a 24.8 percent drop for the first nine months of the year from a year ago.

By Lee Ji-yoon (jylee@heraldcorp.com)