Mumbai: Toyota Motor Corp., which doubled global passenger car production in the past six years, boosting its share of the world market to almost 13 per cent, forecast its smallest profit increase in a decade amidst slowing growth in the US.

Toyota, the world''s largest automaker by market value, expects its net income to rise 0.4 per cent in the year ended March 31 to 1.65 trillion yen ($13.8 billion), against a 20 per cent rise in profit to a record 1.64 trillion yen in the previous fiscal.

The carmaker, which sold more vehicles in the January-March quarter than General Motors Corp., said its sales gains in North America would slow to 1.6 per cent this year from 15.1 per cent last year.

Toyota is raising its R&D spending by 5.5 per cent to 940 billion yen as it develops new car models. The carmaker will also invest 1.5 trillion yen this year to expand capacity in Canada, Russia, China and India.

Toyota is all set to emerge as the world''s largest carmaker end a 76-year reign by General Motors as the largest carmaker by sales as early as this year.

Toyota''s $217 billion market capitalisation makes it almost 13 times larger than GM.