Toyota Industries Corporation has invested USD22 million into a new manufacturing plant in China, and will begin producing forklifts there next year, ahead of forklift sales which are tipped to top 30,000 units by 2005.

Toyota has opened an assembly facility in the Jiangsu province of Kunshan City, near Shanghai, and will manufacture 1000 three-tonne forklifts there when production starts in April 2003. Relaxing Chinese regulations mean the 6000 forklifts currently produced in China by foreign-owned companies will increase to 10,000 by 2005.

Fourteen people will be employed at the 5200 square metre facility when production begins.

A company statement said Toyota would increase its current 24 percent world market share to 30 percent by the end of 2005. Toyota currently sells more than 133,000 forklifts in Japan, Europe and the USA.