The company's sales in western Europe rose 15 per cent last year, twice as fast as the market, to 541,000 units, for a market share of three per cent.

``We have decided to pull ahead by one year the sales target of 600,000 vehicles in Europe -- 581,000 Toyota and 19,000 Lexus -- which we had previously established for the year 2000. That is now our target for 1999,'' said executive vice- president for sales and marketing Juan Jose Diaz Ruiz.

Nissan, Toyota's nearest Japanese rival in the European market, sold 537,279 units in Europe last year and is aiming for 600,000 units in sales after 2000.

Toyota's medium-term objective is to sell 800,000 units a year by 2005 to capture around five per cent, Diaz Ruiz told a news conference at the Geneva car show.

Toyota, the world's third-largest auto company, produced 172,000 cars last year atits Burnaston plant in Britain.

A second European assembly plant, outside the French town of Valenciennes, is scheduled to start producing cars in 2001.

This year Toyota plans to produce 200,000 cars in Britain and import the rest.

The expiry at the end of 1999 of voluntary import quotas agreed by Japan's auto industry and the European Union will not alter Toyota's long-term strategy ``to develop cars in Europe, and produce cars in Europe for Europe,'' Diaz Ruiz told Reuters.

``However, it will remove some artificial and, we believe, unfair restraints in certain markets where the quota is not expressed in global terms but in very definite volumes per manufacturer, and these are three countries, Italy, France and Spain, where we have at the moment a volume quota,'' he said.

Toyota has been unable to satisfy customer demand or expand its dealer networks in those countries, he said.

In the rest of Europe, the quota agreement has been observed in a broader way so that if a Japanese manufacturer soldless than its quota in one country, it could sell more in another.

``Our factory in Valenciennes will not be ready until the year 2001, so temporarily, we will have one year, the year 2000, when we will be able to import a few more cars and help our dealers to develop their franchise,'' he said.

``The year after, we will have Valenciennes producing 150,000 Yaris (compacts). The Yaris is the ideal car for the southern part of Europe, where at the moment we are penalised by the import restrictions,'' Diaz Ruiz said.