Tokyo, Aug 17: Toyota Motor Corp Ltd is to announce on Monday it will produce the Avalon luxury car in Australia from 1998, a Japanese financial daily reported.

The Nihon Keizai Shimbun newspaper quoted officials of the car giant as saying company president Hiroshi Okuda will officially announce that the firm's local subsidiary will produce 20,000 of the 3000 cc passenger cars at its Altona plant in Victoria.

Toyota currently produces some 80,000 Avalon cars per year at its U S factory in Kentucky, the Nihon Keizai quoted company officials as saying. The move came after Australia decided to keep import tariffs at 15 per cent from 2000 until 2004, down from the current 22.5 per cent. It also follows advances by Korean models in Australia's car market, the financial daily's Sunday edition quoted company officials as saying.

The Nihon Keizai also reported that Toyota chairman Shoichiro Toyoda had told Australian minister for industry, science and tourism John Moore early this month in Japan that the firm's Australian subsidiary would double exports to 28,000 in 2000. This compare d with 14,000 in 1996, and bring total production to 100,000 vehicles annually by the turn of the century. Toyota Australia Ltd produced 45,000 Corolla models.

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