Toyota’s India-made Etios to hit South Africa by March

Toyota Motor plans to start exporting two of its Indian-made models – the Etios Liva hatchback and the Etios sedan – to South Africa by March, as it moves towards making India a global export hub.

"The export models of Etios will be built on the same platform as those being sold in India," Toyota Kirloskar Motor said in a statement yesterday. It did not specify the volume of the first consignment, but said some technical changes would be made to suit local requirements. The exports will be only of the petrol version and not the diesel versions popular in India due to the huge difference in retail prices of petrol and diesel.

Toyota Kirloskar is 89-per cent owned by Japan's Toyota Motor Corp, the world's biggest carmaker by sales. The rest is owned by the Kirloskar Group, mainly known for engineering. The Etios is made at one of the company's two plants near Bangalore.

"With the start of exports, Toyota Kirloskar has entered a new chapter of business in India," said Hiroshi Nakagawa, managing director of Toyota Kirloskar, in the statement.

"We see a big opportunity in this sector as exports have considerably grown when compared to last year. TKM's foray into the export market promises a lot of growth for the company," deputy managing director (commercial) Shekar Viswanathan he said.

The plant can currently produce up to 80,000 cars a year, and the company is ramping up capacity to 120,000 cars by 2012 and 210,000 cars by 2013.