2nd Toyota plant for Canada, president says

Toyota Motor Corp.'s new president has confirmed that the thriving Japanese company will build a second Canadian plant. The company is in the final planning stages for a new plant, and will soon make a formal announcement, Katsuaki Watanabe said Monday in Tokyo. Woodstock, Ont., 163 kilometres southwest of Toronto, is expected to be the site of the new factory. The new factory is expected to create at least 1,500 jobs when it opens in 2008. Toyota is growing rapidly in North America, selling more than two million cars and trucks last year in the United States. In contrast to weak sales at North American based manufacturers, Toyota's U.S. sales were up 10 per cent in the first five months of 2005. The company has three U.S. plants, and is working on another, set to open in 2006. It has one in Mexico, and opened its first Canadian plant, in Cambridge, Ont., in 1989. Toyota shareholders approved Watanabe's appointment last week.