Toyota Motor has said improved product quality is top of its agenda for China as it targets a higher share of the world’s largest vehicle market.
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The company said it would constantly stress quality in all of its plants in China and pay more attention to feedback from consumers in order to further improve product quality, China Daily reported.
“We have set up a global quality special committee that aims to improve product quality so that consumers can use our products with fewer worries,” Toyota Motor’s China representative Etsuo Hattori said at a motor show in Changchun in the northeast Jilin province.
His call for increased quality came after Toyota Motor (China) Investment chief spokesman Liu Peng said the company was confident it could properly handle labour disputes which are increasingly being heard as Chinese workers become more vocal about their interests.
“In the long term, Toyota will also build a platform for better communications between management and employees,” Liu said.
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By GlobalDataToyota said it has always viewed China as one of its most important markets, as two of its joint ventures in China both reported a surge in sales during the first half of the year.
FAW Toyota Motor volume rose 44% year on year to about 240,000 units. The company is aiming for 500,000 units for the full year, while Toyota’s other joint venture with Guangzhou Automobile Group, also known as Guangqi Toyota, soared 68% to over 130,000 units during the same period.
Hattori said Toyota also plans to further expand its business in northeast China as a jointly invested new plant is expected to be operational during the first half of 2012.
Rival and long established Chinese JV player Volkswagen Group on Thursday said it would build a new vehicle production plant in Yizheng, in eastern Jiangsu Province, as part of its long-term growth strategy for the market. The plant, with local joint venture partner Shanghai Volkswagen, will start operating in 2013 and have annual capacity of up to 300,000 vehicles.
Chinese auto sales rose 47.67% year on year to 9.02m units in the first half of the year, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.
