General Motors Corporation said it's considering resuming automotive financing in Japan, after a 12-year absence from a market where the world's largest automaker has been expanding alliances, according to a Jan. 25 Bloomberg News story by Dan Hart.

GM will decide within about a year, spokeswoman Hillary Spittle told Hart. The Detroit-based company left the Japanese market in 1989, when its General Motors Acceptance Corporation unit sold its stake in an auto-financing joint venture to Isuzu Motors Ltd.

GM this month doubled its stake in Suzuki Motor Corp. to 20.1 percent. In 1999, the automaker raised its stake in Isuzu to 49 percent. The U.S. company last year bought a 21 percent interest in Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd., the maker of Subaru cars.

General Motors probably would consider working with those affiliates or buying a company to allow it to provide financing, Spittle said. The Nihon Keizai newspaper reported on Jan. 25 the possibility that GM would re-enter the business in Japan.

The move could be a way to boost revenue as car and truck sales decline amid the slowing U.S. economy.

GMAC last year had net income of $1.6 billion out of the automaker's $4.97 billion total profit from operations. GMAC's net profit margin was 6.8 percent, compared to 2.7 percent for the parent company.