News: Toyota to build new plant in India by 2010

(RTR 12/02/2007) Tokyo/Mumbai - Toyota Motor Corp. plans to build a new plant by 2010 in southern India, concentrating on inexpensive, smaller model cars, the Nikkei business daily reported on Monday.

The new plant, which would be built close to the company's first plant near Bangalore, would aim at producing 100,000 cars a year, roughly doubling the firm's output capacity in India.

It would cost roughly 40 to 50 billion yen ($328-$410 million) to build, the report said.

Asked about the article, a Toyota spokesman said the company did not have any such concrete plans at present but stopped short of saying the report was incorrect.

A spokesman in India said he was "not aware of such a plan".

Toyota, Japan's top auto maker, has said it wants 10 percent of the fast-growing Indian market by 2010, when annual sales are expected to nearly double to 2 million units or even more.

Toyota sold 48,000 vehicles in India in 2006, including the seven-seater Innova and the Corolla and the imported Camry sedan and Prado sport utility vehicle.

Toyota has said it is considering developing a cheap small car for India and other emerging markets.

Its rivals Suzuki Motor Corp and Honda Motor Co. have a sizeable presence and are expanding capacity.

Suzuki -- whose Indian unit Maruti Udyog Ltd. has nearly half the market for mostly small cars -- is investing a further 200 billion yen by 2010 to expand capacity at car and engine plants.

Honda is building a second plant in India and aims to sell more than 150,000 vehicles a year by the end of 2010.