TOKYO (Reuters) -Toyota Motor said on Thursday it would build a new vehicle factory in its namesake city in central Japan to start operations in the early 2030s.
Production models have yet to be decided, the company said in a statement, along with its financial results for the April-to-June quarter.
The announcement of a new domestic factory from the world’s top-selling automaker comes even as Japanese car sales have been falling due to a shrinking population and declining ownership. The last assembly plant Toyota built in Japan was in 2012.
It also comes as President Donald Trump has complained of a flood of Japanese cars flowing into the U.S. and contributing to a massive trade deficit for his country. Among Japanese automakers, Toyota is the top exporter to the U.S., although most of the vehicles it sells there are built locally.
Toyota has had a long-standing policy of maintaining annual production capacity of 3 million vehicles in Japan, with roughly half bound for overseas markets.
(Reporting by Chang-Ran Kim; Editing by Jamie Freed)
