Toyota Motor Corp.'s sales of vehicles produced overseas accounted for 58 percent of total overseas sales in 1996, narrowly missing its target of 60 percent, according to the firm's progress report.
A Toyota spokesman said that although the firm expanded overseas production last year, the overseas market grew at a faster clip, creating a demand that had to be filled by exports.
In its global business plan presented in June 1995, aimed at expanding localization and import expansion, Toyota pledged to raise the ratio of foreign-produced vehicles in overseas sales to 60 percent in 1996 and to 65 percent in 1998, compared with 48 percent in 1994. The report said that by the end of 1998, the firm plans to start operating new factories in the United States, Britain, Indonesia and Brazil. The firm plans to decide by the end of this year whether to build a factory in India, he added.
As for the other goal of expanding imports, domestic sales of the Toyota Cavalier, produced by General Motors Corp., reached 11,000 units in 1996, well below the target of 20,000 units. The spokesman said they will work on meeting the goal this year.
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