Annual global production by Japan's car giant Toyota is forecast to top seven million units in 2005, closing in on the world leader General Motors, a press report said Sunday.
Toyota Motor Corp will start up new plants in the Chinese city of Tianjin and the Czech Republic early next year while marketing "strategic cars" to suit particular consumer tastes in Europe and the rest of Asia, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun said.
Toyota's global output in 2003 came to 6,070,000 units, lying behind about 8.3 million units produced by GM and nearly seven million units produced by another US leader, Ford, the leading economic daily said.
No official was available at Toyota to confirm the report.
Toyota's output is targeted to reach 6.7 million units in 2004.
Its overseas production will also expand to about 50 percent of total global output by 2005, the report added.
In August, Toyota will start production of a low-priced multi-passenger car, initially in Thailand and Indonesia. The car will be manufactured in other Southeast Asian countries, Africa and Latin America.
The plant, which Toyota is building together with French auto-maker PSA Peugeot Citroen Group in the Czech Republic, will begin rolling out a sub-compact developed jointly with PSA early next year, the report said.
Toyota's joint venture with China FAW Group Corp will put its second plant in Tianjin into operation early next year.
The new plant will build 100,000-150,000 vehicles of the luxury Crown car and other models annually, the report said.
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