Toyota to close one Thai plant

Toyota to close one Thai plant

TOKYO (AFP): Japan's auto giant Toyota Motor Corp. will shut down one of its four plants in Thailand in 1999 in a move to reorganize its manufacturing setup in the country, a business daily said yesterday.

Toyota will close an engine production plant in Ladkrabang, Bangkok in early 1999 and transfer the operation to a plant in the east of Bangkok, Nihon Keizai Shimbun said.

The auto maker chose to set up operations which can generate profits with lower production rather than trying to cut costs when prospects of auto demand in the country remained uncertain, the daily said.

Toyota will consolidate its passenger car production at the Gateway plant in Chachoengsao this year, the newspaper said.

Production of the Corolla model will be moved from the company's Samrong plant in Samut Prakan to the Gateway plant which currently makes Corona sedans and the low-priced Soluna, it said.

Samrong plant will continue to make the Hilux pick-up truck, exporting 20, 000 units a year to the Oceania region from mid- 1998, it said.

Toyota is the biggest car producer in Thailand with a 30 percent share of the local market and an annual output capacity of 240,000 units.

Operations at the Samrong and Gateway plant have halted since mid-November and are scheduled to restart on January 9.

The currency turmoil in Southeast Asia has forced Toyota and other Japanese carmakers to reduce output in the region.