The Yomiuri Shimbun daily reports that Japan's Toyota Motors plans to have 1,000 sales outlets in China by 2010, as it aims to meet its goal of 10 percent market share by then.

The world's second-largest automaker, which now has about 150 showrooms in the fast-growing Chinese market, says it will increase that number according to the growth of the market.

The paper says Toyota, a latecomer to the world's third-biggest auto market, wants to expand its sales network to catch up with leader Volkswagen AG, which has 1,010 outlets.

Last year, Toyota sold about 116,000 vehicles in China, giving it a share of about 2 percent of the total market including trucks and other commercial vehicles.

(CRI.com January 21, 2005)