Companies from Japan are working hard to make the best of a bad situation after floods in Thailand devastated global supply chains and brought some industries to a grinding halt.

Auto giant Toyota Motor Corp has announced it will expand investment in Thailand and will work with partners to minimise risks associated with floods and tsunamis. 

The firm expects full production to resume this month, aiming to produce a million cars in 2012, a 55% increase in annual production.

Honda Motor Co, which counts Thailand as its second-largest Asian manufacturing base and abandoned full-year profit forecasts due to the floods, plans to resume production from April.

Meanwhile, electronic corporation Toshiba, whose production of hard disk drives ran at 50% capacity during the floods, expects its lines to be operating again by late January at the earliest.

To speed up the recovery process, the Thai government has granted Japanese car producers tariff-free import incentives on parts and machinery to replace goods damaged by the flooding. It has also allowed Honda to import assembled cars tariff-free until June to replace lost output.

Meanwhile, in a bid to remedy the supply chain disruptions and prevent the loss of skilled employees, several thousand Thai workers at Japanese firms operating in Thailand will be allowed to work in Japan for a fixed time frame of roughly six months as companies shift their production in the short term.

Thai quality auditors and production-line workers at firms such as video equipment manufacturer JVC Kenwood, or camera producer Nikon will supervise their Japanese colleagues or reinforce the production lines.