Toyota Motor Corp. announced last week that it planned to build a factory in Mississippi, but now says it will suspend those plans as it braces for its first loss in 70 years, The New York Times reported.

Toyota, which has appeared unstoppable in spite of the global economic recession, announced today that it expects a 150 billion yen, or $1.7 billion, loss in its group operating revenue during the fiscal year. It would be Toyota’s first loss since 1938, one year after the company was founded.

“The change in the world economy is of a magnitude that comes once every hundred years,” company President Katsuaki Watanabe said in a news conference. “We are facing an unprecedented emergency.”

The company said it is suffering from plunging car sales not only in the United States but also in India and China – places Toyota hoped would be immune from the crisis.

Toyota expects to sell about 1.4 million fewer vehicles globally this fiscal year than it did last year. The automaker said sales will be hit particularly hard in North America, where a decline of 250,000 units is forecast.

“It’s just a matter of time before all major automakers are losing money,” an auto analyst in Tokyo for Credit Suisse Securities, Koji Endo, said. “And things will just get worse next year, when companies start losing money for the second consecutive year.”

Despite its problems, Toyota remains more stable than its U.S. counterparts with $18.5 billion in cash and relatively little debt.