Toyota Motor Corp will not need to build a new car factory in Europe for the next few years as it can rely on some increase in imports from the stagnant Japanese market, a top executive said on March 05.
Toyota, the world's most profitable automaker, has assembly plants in five European countries, including a Czech joint venture with PSA Peugeot Citroen. Those plants have a total annual output capacity of 825,000 vehicles, with production in 2007 running at full tilt.
"We would not expect to announce anything major in the next two years," Toyota Motor Europe Chief Operating Officer Thierry Dombreval told Reuters in an interview at the Geneva auto show.
Toyota began building cars at a new 50,000-units-a-year factory in Russia last December, and this week announced an investment of 115 million euros to make small engines at its UK plant in Deeside, north Wales.
"We have some import supply flexibility that can be utilised - the Japanese market is not so strong. This is obviously providing some flexibility for us," Dombreval said.
Toyota, the maker of the Prius hybrid, raised its European sales by 10 percent to 1.239 million vehicles in 2007. It plans to boost that by 4 to 5 percent this year, counting on its strength in Russia and other Eastern European markets to make up for softening demand in Western Europe.