Suzuki will aim to achieve consolidated net sales of 3 trillion yen (£13.5bn) in the current financial year ending March 2007.

The company said this was due to favourable financial results in the first quarter and steadily growing demand for Suzuki’s compact vehicles in export markets.

It also announced it will add a new manufacturing plant, with a capacity of 240,000 compact vehicles, to its Sagara facility at Shizuoka, Japan.

Construction of the new plant at Sagara will commence this autumn and the plant will start operation in late 2008. Total investment will be in the region of 60 billion yen (£287m).

These latest expansion plans are in addition to plans for increases in production capacities which total 530,000 units at three other key Suzuki plants outside Japan announced earlier in 2006 as follows:

Manufacturing facility Production – year to March, 2007 Production – year to March, 2008 Production – year to March, 2009
Magyar Suzuki, Hungary 160,000 300,000 300,000
Maruti Udyog, India 630,000 960,000
Pak Suzuki, Pakistan 110,000 170,000