Toyota Motor Corp, Asia's largest carmaker, will invest 3.8 billion yuan (US$461 million) with its partner Guangzhou Automobile Group to expand in China and catch up with rivals that started making cars in the country earlier.
Toyota and Guangzhou Auto will build Camry models in a factory located in Guangzhou, the two companies said. The factory will start production in 2006 and have the annual capacity of at least 100,000 units.
Toyota is adding production and introducing new models to increase its share of China's car market to 10 percent by 2010 from its current 3 percent. It lags Honda Motor Co, which has 5 percent of the market, Volkswagen AG, the market leader with about 30 percent and General Motors Corp with about 12 percent.
"The China project will help Toyota become a real global automaker and keep it on course to become the biggest automaker in the world," said Atsushi Osa, who helps manage the equivalent of US$110 billion at Sumitomo Mitsui Asset Management Co in Tokyo. "Toyota's plan in China is finally coming through."
Toyota and Guangzhou Auto may boost capacity at the new factory to 250,000 units annually if there is demand, Toyota Executive Vice President Kosuke Shiramizu said at a press conference in Guangzhou, southern China's largest city. Factories typically expand capacity by adding on more machines and work shifts on to an existing production line.
He did not give a time frame for the plan to expand. After the factory is built, Toyota will stop importing Camrys into China from Japan.
Toyota expects sales in China will climb 50 percent this year to 150,000 units. The Corolla, which Toyota began building locally in February, should account for a third of this year's sales.
Toyota's sales are growing faster than market leaders Volkswagen AG, General Motors Corp and Honda, all of which set up manufacturing facilities in China before the carmaker. Toyota invested 80 billion yen (US$725 million) since 1964 in China setting up dealerships, marketing and maintenance centers before the joint venture with Guangzhou Auto, according to company data.
Slower growth has prompted carmakers to cut prices to lure customers. Volkswagen,reduced its prices by as much as 12 percent in June.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
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