TOKYO (Thomson Financial) - Japanese automaker Toyota Motor Corp is considering building an eighth Chinese assembly plant to boost annual local output to 1 million units, the Nikkei reported at the weekend, without citing sources.
The plant in Changchun, Jilin Province, would be built by a joint venture with China's top automaker FAW Group Corp, the business daily said.
Although Toyota already has a small facility in that city to assemble the Prius hybrid and other vehicles, this would be its first fully-fledged plant in Changchun, with painting and press equipment.
The Corolla subcompact is among the candidate vehicles to be assembled at the plant.
Toyota would likely spend 50 billion yen or so on building the new plant, the report said.
Production would start as soon as the early 2010s, it said.
(1 US dollar = 106.50 yen)
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