Toyota Motor president Katsuaki Watanabe expressed willingness on Tuesday to form an alliance with troubled automakers in the global marketplace, according to Kyodo News.

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”The possibility exists constantly that a reconfiguration of ties between global automakers will occur since the automotive industry is going through intense competition,” Watanabe reportedly told a news conference in Kitakyushu, Fukuoka Prefecture.


”It requires conducting mammoth capital outlays for automakers to innovate their technologies in the fields of the environment, safety and the telecommunications,” he said, adding, ”On top of that, such innovations require securing personnel resources.


”There is the adequate possibility that we will form various types of alliances with others, if an automaker faces difficulties in meeting these needs single-handedly,” he said.


Watanabe was on a visit to Kitakyushu to commemorate the completion of a new engine factory in Kanda, Toyota’s first domestic engine plant in a location other than its home turf of Aichi Prefecture. The new Fukuoka plant will supply engines for use in Toyota’s Lexus luxury automobiles.

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Akiyoshi Watanabe, president of Toyota Motor Kyushu, a wholly owned unit, told the same news conference his firm ”expects to manufacture a total of 438,000 vehicles,” both the Lexus and other brands, during the current business year to 31 March, 2007.


Toyota Motor Kyushu is planning to boost plant utilisation ratios at its plants to full capacity by the end of the current business year, he said.