Toyota is eyeing a new plant in China according to Japanese business daily Nikkei.
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It is considering a new 100,000-unit assembly plant in Changchun, Jilin Province, at a likely cost of JPY50bn ($US469m) with opening early in the 2010 decade, the newspaper said.
Toyota has a small assembly facility in Changchun, but the factory would be its first full plant in the city, and its eighth assembly factory in China.
The plant, to be operated with China’s top automaker, FAW Group, is likely to build the Corolla sub-compact among other models, the report said.
Toyota is rapidly increasing output in an attempt to gain a 10% share of the 8.6m-unit Chinese market, now the world’s second largest after the US.
The automaker opened a Corolla factory in Tianjin last year, and its new Guangzhou facility should start operating next year. It also builds the Camry and assembles the Prius hybrid in China.
The latest project would take Toyota’s annual local output to 1m units, making China its third-largest production base after Japan and the United States, the Nikkei said.
