Japanese carmaker Daihatsu plans an additional investment of 70 million U.S. dollars in Indonesia, which is tipped to become its second production base after Japan, to increase production capacity to 150,000 units a year, an executive said Wednesday.

Local unit PT Astra Daihatsu Motor will add investment to increase capacity from currently 114,000 units a year, the company 's vice president Sudirman was quoted by the Antara news agency as saying.

"We have several plans that cannot be disclosed now as discussions are still ongoing, but one thing for sure is an additional investment of 70 million dollars to be materialized in 2007," he said.

The expansion is to anticipate growing demand for Xenia and Avanza minivans, which are produced in collaboration with Daihatsu 's mother company Toyota.

The two models are also sold to Thailand, Brunei and Malaysia, and Daihatsu plans to expand the export markets to the Philippines and Mexico.

"Daihatsu has targeted to grab 10.5 percent of Indonesia's auto market share in 2006," he said.

Source: Xinhua