NEW YORK, Sept 20(Reuters) - Toyota Motor Corp will become the first Japanese automaker to market its made-in-Europe cars at home when it starts importing mid-sized sedans produced at its United Kingdom plant in a year or so, a Japanese business daily said.
Toyota, Japan's top automaker, plans to sell 20,000 to 30,000 British-made cars in Japan a year, making it the largest volume of foreign-made Japanese cars marketed in the home market, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun's online Saturday edition said.
Toyota will import the Avensis, with a 1.8-liter gasoline engine, which sold more than 100,000 units last year in Europe, the paper said. It is slated to be fully remodeled early next year.
The reported move, aimed at avoiding redundant expenses which would have been incurred if the sedans were produced in Japan, is in line with its global strategy specifying appropriate manufacturing bases of each model for exports worldwide, the paper said.
The Nihon Keizai also said sluggish sales of sedans helped Toyota post its 12th straight month of year-on-year sales decline in August in the Japanese market.
No one at Toyota was available for immediate comment.