West Japan Railway Co. (JR West) unveiled on Tuesday a plan to cut 6,000 employees and transfer another 3,000 parent company workers to group firms.

The railway operator said the moves will allow it to raise group operating profits from 111.8 billion yen to 130 billion yen by the 2005 business year.

In its first midterm business plan, it pledged to increase its return-on-assets ratio from 4.4 percent to 5.4 percent during the same period.