TOKYO, Feb 22 (AFP) - Japan's Toyota Motor said Tuesday it has no immediate plans to build new factories in North America despite a report it would soon invest in more production facilities in the region.
"There has been speculation that we will build our seventh and eighth factories in North America but we have no such plans at this point," said a Toyota spokesman.
"We have said that we want to expand our sales in the North American market, which is a very big market and very important for our overall sales," he said.
To this effect, Toyota "will need new production hubs to expand our supply, but nothing concrete has been decided," he said.
The Wall Street Journal said Tuesday that the world's second-biggest automaker would likely add two more assembly plants in North America by the end of the decade.
Toyota would likely announce a site for a seventh assembly plant in North America by the end of this year and begin a site-search for an eighth facility soon thereafter, the online edition of the newspaper said, citing unnamed senior company executives.
Toyota plans to take a bigger share of the world's richest auto market and challenge General Motors Corp of the United States as the world's leading automaker.
The automaker will open this month a plant in Mexico that would make small pickup trucks and truck beds.
Toyota is also completing a new factory in Texas that would start building a new line of large pickup trucks in 2006.
02/22/2005 05:14 GMT - AFP