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Daihatsu plans China small-car production
By Alex Frew McMillan
TOKYO, Japan (CNN) -- Small-car maker Daihatsu Motor Co. will partner with China FAW Group to make cars in that country and is finalizing a production plan. "The outline of the plan is now being considered," Daihatsu spokesman Naoyuki Wakabayashi told CNN on Thursday. Daihatsu is considering producing its Mira and Move small cars in China, as well as its Terios subcompact sport utility vehicle. Those are its three main models sold in overseas markets. But the company has not yet settled the model lineup and others may yet be included. The move comes after Daihatsu's parent, Toyota, struck a partnership with China FAW in August. Toyota owns 51 percent of Daihatsu, which makes cars for Toyota on a contract basis as well as under its own name. Supplementing production of VitzToyota, Japan's largest car producer, will work with China FAW to ramp up production to as much as 400,000 vehicles a year by 2010. (Full story) The Daihatsu joint venture deal with FAW will supplement production of Toyota's Vitz subcompact, expected to start in China in the northern autumn. Daihatsu did not confirm the timing of a report in the Nihon Keizai Shimbun, which stated it will begin production by 2005, ramping up to 100,000 units by 2007. "We are now considering the details of the contract but the exact timing hasn't been decided," Wakabayashi said. Daihatsu let a technical supply partnership with Tianjin Automobile Xiali Co., another Chinese carmaker, expire this year. China is a strong small-car market and an increasingly important one for Japanese car companies. Honda and Nissan both have joint venture deals to mass produce cars there. (Nissan's $1 billion deal) Daihatsu is also using Southeast Asia as a manufacturing base for exporting. It plans to use its factory in Jakarta, Indonesia, to make minivans by mid-2003. (Full story) It is also expanding production at its Malaysian manufacturing base, to benefit from a lowering of tariffs in the Association of Southeast Asian Nation (ASEAN) region. Daihatsu stock is down 1.2 percent to 420 yen Thursday morning, at a time the broad Topix index of all Section 1 Tokyo stocks is down 0.21 percent at 891.33.
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