Toyota to build new plant in India by 2010: report

TOKYO (Reuters) - Toyota Motor Corp. (7203.T) plans to build a new plant by 2010 in southern Indian concentrating on inexpensive, smaller model cars, the Nikkei business daily reported on Monday.

The new plant, which would be built close to the company's first plant in the country near Bangalore, would aim at producing 100,000 cars a year, roughly doubling the firm's output capacity in India.

It would cost roughly 40 to 50 billion yen ($328 to $410 million) to build, the report said.

Asked about the article, a Toyota spokesman said the company did not have any such concrete plans at present but stopped short of saying the report was incorrect.

India's passenger vehicle market is forecast to expand rapidly, and other major Japanese car makers such as Suzuki Motor Corp (7269.T) and Honda Motor Co. (7267.T) have a sizeable presence.

Suzuki said last week it will invest a further 200 billion yen in its Indian venture to expand capacity at car and engine plants.

Toyota, Japan's top auto maker, last week posted a near-20 percent rise in quarterly profit on brisk sales in North America and Europe, and kept its forecasts for an eighth straight year of record earnings intact.