Toyota has decided to press ahead with a new 150,000-unit small car factory in Sorocaba, in southeastern Brazil, which will treble its local output.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
The company announced plans for the plant a year ago but said six months later, as the credit crunch began to bite, it would review investment plans for Brazil, China and India.
The decision to now go ahead with the second Brazilian plant was spurred by a government move to cut taxes to help boost new car sales.
Erick Boccia, a Toyota spokesman in Sao Paulo, told Bloomberg News: “The tax cut in Brazil is important and favoured the decision to maintain our plans”.
The government announced plans to extend the tax cuts yesterday (29 June).
The new plant will make compact cars and should be ready by 2011. Toyota has an existing plant in Indaiatuba, also in southeastern Brazil, building about 70,000 flexfuel Corollas a year.
Toyota Brazil’s sales rose 29% in the first five months of this year to 19,648, according to the national automakers association.
The automaker declined to say how much it is spending on the new factory.
