Toyota Motor Corp will not need to build a new car factory in Europe for the next few years as it can rely on some increase in imports from the stagnant Japanese market. Toyota, the world's most profitable automaker, has assembly plants in five European countries, including a Czech joint venture with PSA Peugeot Citroen. Those plants have a total annual output capacity of 825,000 vehicles, with production in 2007 running at full tilt.

Toyota began building cars at a new 50,000-units-a-year factory in Russia last December announced an investment of 115 million euros to make small engines at its UK plant in Deeside, north Wales. Toyota, the maker of the Prius hybrid, raised its European sales by 10 percent to 1.239 million vehicles in 2007. It plans to boost that by 4 to 5 per cent this year, counting on its strength in Russia and other Eastern European markets to make up for softening demand in Western Europe.