Toyota Revs Up World-Wide Production Capacity: Plans to Double Output Capacity at South African Plant

TOKYO August 13, 2005; The AP reported that the Nihon Keizai newspaper said Toyota Motor Corp., Japan's biggest automaker, plans to nearly double production capacity at its plant in South Africa by 2007 as part of a strategy to expand overseas.

"The plant, operated by the subsidiary Toyota South Africa Motors, will raise its output capacity to 200,000 vehicles a year, from its current level of 110,000 vehicles."

The newspapers story went on to say that by 2007, the plant is expected to be assembling up to 120,000 of Toyota's IMV series pickups and sport utility vehicles a year. The vehicles will be exported to the European market, where Toyota's unit sales rose 10 percent to 916,000 vehicles last year, the newspaper said.

Toyota's European production jumped 47 percent to 583,000 vehicles last year, but the company is still anticipating a supply shortfall, according to the report. The company's new plant in the Czech Republic opened this spring, and another in Russia is expected to come online in 2007.