Toyota Marks Opening of 1st European Transmission Plant

TOKYO ― TOYOTA MOTOR CORPORATION (TMC) held an opening ceremony today at Toyota Motor Manufacturing Poland Sp. z o.o. (TMMP) in Walbrzych, Dolnoslaskie, Poland, to celebrate the plant's recent start of manual transmission production. The opening of TMMP―Toyota's first European transmission plant― marks another step in Toyota's policy of increasing local production to support its growth plans for Europe.

TMMP was established in September 1999 and has been manufacturing manual transmissions since April of this year for the Yaris at TMMF in France. It will eventually make transmissions for the Corolla and Avensis produced by TMUK in the U.K. and the Corolla made by TMMT in Turkey, for a total annual capacity of 250,000 units. This will grow to 550,000 units when TMMP expands production, as announced in March this year, to include, from the end of 2004, 300,000 manual transmissions and 250,000 1-liter gasoline engines for new-model cars to be made by joint venture Toyota Peugeot Citroën Automobile Czech (TPCA) from 2005. Total investment will be 400 million euros, and the number of employees at full production is expected to be around 1,000.

"We have positioned TMMP as a unit production base for our European operations and envision its further development and evolution," said TMC President Fujio Cho, in expressing his expectations for TMMP. "Through this project we hope to make an ongoing contribution, in however small a way, to the Polish economy and Polish society and to earn a place as a trusted member of the regional community."

Guests at the ceremony included Polish Prime Minister Leszek Miller, Polish Economics Minister Jacek Piechota, the governor of Dolnoslaskie Province, the mayor of Walbrzych and related persons from the local area, as well as Japanese Ambassador to Poland Hideaki Ueda. In addition to President Cho, TMC Honorary Chairman Shoichiro Toyoda, TMMP President Toshitaka Kageyama and others, including TMMP's entire workforce, represented Toyota, for a total event attendance of about 400 people.

During the ceremony, TMC announced the donation of two units of the Avensis to the Walbrzych city government.