Toyota reportedly is to spend $US456 million to expand production in Thailand, a major export base, to over half a million cars and trucks a year by 2007.
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Reuters said Toyota will build a 15 billion baht ($US380 million) plant on the outskirts of the capital, its third in Thailand, employing 2,000 to produce 100,000 Hilux Vigo trucks a year by early 2007.
Toyota will also expand its Gateway industrial unit at Chachoengsao, 130km (75 miles) east of Bangkok, at a cost of 3 billion baht ($76 million), the report added.
Capacity at the Gateway plant, which makes sedans such as the Camry and Corolla, reportedly would increase to 200,000 units by 2006 from 110,000 currently – it will employ 1,500 extra workers at the plant.
“Thailand is becoming a global production centre for Toyota and its biggest market in ASEAN. Our production facilities here are the third biggest in the world after Japan and the United States,” Toyota’s global senior managing director Akio Toyoda told Reuters at a news conference.
Toyota reportedly said that by 2007 its total vehicle production capacity at its three Thai plants would be 550,000 units a year, up from 360,000 now.
