Toyota Motor Corp., the world's biggest automaker by market value, will start construction of its third plant in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin as it seeks to gain a bigger slice of the world's third-largest vehicle market.

The new plant, to be built with its partner Tianjin FAW Xiali Automobile Co., will be able to produce 500,000 vehicles a year by 2007, the Toyota City, Japan-based automaker said on Monday at a briefing to mark the opening of its second plant in the city. Executive Vice President Akio Toyoda, 48, declined to say when the plant will be completed or which models it will produce.

Toyota is adding production and introducing new models to increase its share of China's car market to 10 percent by 2010 from about 3 percent now. The company lags Honda Motor Co., which has about 5 percent of the market, Volkswagen AG, the market leader with 25 percent, and General Motors Corp. with 9.3 percent.

"Toyota is very ambitious in expanding in China, although it is still too early to say whether it is successful or not," said Alex Fan, an analyst with Daiwa Institute of Research in Hong Kong, before the announcement.

Toyota and FAW Xiali plan to introduce a new, jointly developed model in October, said Jin Yi, deputy general manager of the Chinese automaker.

The second plant has capacity for 100,000 Toyota Crown luxury sedans a year, Toyota said. It will be the first time the automaker builds the Crown outside Japan, said company President Fujio Cho at the press briefing. The cars will sell for 328,000 yuan ($39,650) to 480,000 yuan and Toyota aims to sell 20,000 in China this year, he added.

“We hope that we can lead the growing high-end market in China with the Crown,'' Cho said.

Toyota has so far received 4,000 orders for the car, which is in its 12th generation, Cho said.

The company's first joint venture factory in Tianjin has annual production capacity for 120,000 Corolla and Vios compact cars, the statement said.

Toyota's shares rose 0.3 percent to 4,010 yen in Tokyo on March 18. Today is a national holiday in Japan.

(CRI.com March 22, 2005)