Toyota considers fourth car factory in Thailand

World's biggest carmaker warms to the idea of sourcing small cars from Thailand
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Toyota seems poised to set up another manufacturing operation in Thailand and join the growing number of companies building small cars games there.

Toyota has typically assembled commercial and utility vehicles in Thailand, but as that country's carmaking expertise has grown, so too has the number of car factories and the types of cars they build.

Most Hondas sold in Australia now come from Thailand and Nissan began making the Micra hatch there last year. Mitsubishi is poised to follow with the replacement for its Colt small hatch. Suzuki too is looking at a Thai car-building operation.

Now Toyota is considering using Thailand as a base for its next Yaris small car, so that it can remain price competitive with its peers.

The Thai-made Nissan Micra starts from $13,990 while the Japanese-made Toyota Yaris starts from $15,990 in the price-sensitive market. Australia also has a free trade agreement with Thailand.

A new Toyota Yaris is due before the end of the year but that will be a made in Japan model; a Thai-built version could be introduced in around three years, mid-way through that model's lifecycle.

Kyoichi Tanada, president of Toyota Motor Thailand, told local newspaper, The Nation: "Thailand has the potential for new Toyota investment. Thai employees here strongly understand Toyota's culture, as we have operated in Thailand for almost 50 years.

"Besides, Thai skilled labourers are better than those in other countries like India and Indonesia. A key performance index conducted internally showed that our labourers have the best productivity and efficiency compared with others. So we will ask the parent company to invest in Thailand," he said.

Not everyone is a fan of Thailand for small car production, however. Mazda Australia reverted to sourcing its Mazda2 from Japan after only a few months of sourcing the new model from Thailand last year.

Small car specialist Suzuki currently uses India as its low-cost base; the $12,490 Suzuki Alto comes from the sub-continent where Suzuki has greater than 50 per cent share of the new-car market.


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