Toyota Motor said on Nov. 5 it would nearly double its investment in a new plant in India to 68 billion yen (US$683 million).
In April, Toyota announced a plan to invest 35 billion yen in a new factory on the site of a Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM) plant on the outskirts of the southern Indian technology hub of Bangalore. Toyota said on Nov. 5 it would spend another 33 billion yen on necessary equipment for a production line.
The new plant will start production in 2010 with annual output capacity of 100,000 passenger vehicles.
Toyota and other carmakers are competing to increase their share of the Indian market, where automobile sales are forecast to rise sharply as the economy expands and middle-class incomes rise.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2008