Toyota: Mexico Leading Contender for Plant

LOS ANGELES Reuters is reporting that Toyota, Japan's largest automaker, plans to choose a site for its fifth North American assembly plant within the year, with Mexico a leading contender to host the facility, the head of the company's U.S. sales unit said on Wednesday.

``We are looking at Mexico as a very good potential market,'' Yoshi Inaba, chief executive of Torrance, California-based Toyota Motor Sales USA told Reuters. ``Certainly Mexico has proven to be a good production site. It's high on the list of locations...but Mexico isn't the only place we will be looking at.''

Mexico has become attractive because of its participation in the North American Free Trade Agreement with the United States and Canada, Inaba said.

Toyota, the world's No. 4 automaker by sales, already has plants in Cambridge, Ontario; Georgetown, Kentucky; Princeton, Indiana and one in Fremont, California jointly operated with General Motors Corp.Newspapers in Japan have reported that Toyota management has already settled on Mexico for the production facility although the company has repeatedly said no decision has been made on where to locate the plant, expected to begin producing Tacoma pick-up trucks by 2004.

``Infrastructure (in Mexico) is reasonable, the quality of labor is good, and there's cost efficiency,'' Inaba said.

In another sign of its increasing confidence in Mexico, Inaba said Toyota will establish its first new sales network in the country since the 1960s.

Toyota will begin its Mexico push with the opening of six dealerships, including four in Mexico City, on April 1. The company has set a modest sales target of about 5,000 units for calendar 2003. Its Mexico product line is expected to consist mostly of U.S.-made cars, particularly its mainstay Corolla and Camry models.

The company is expected to make a formal, more detailed announcement next week about its new Mexican sales initiative