Reuters, April 29, 2019
OTTAWA, April 29 (Reuters) – Toyota Motor Corp will invest hundreds of millions of dollars to produce its Lexus NX luxury crossover vehicle at a Canadian plant, sources said on Monday, offering relief to a region where other carmakers have announced job cuts.
The company will produce the Lexus NX and the hybrid version of the NX at the Cambridge, Ontario, factory, a government source said, while two industry sources familiar with the matter confirmed the plant would produce a new vehicle without specifying which.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and a top executive at Toyota, one of the world’s biggest carmakers, are scheduled to make the announcement later at the Cambridge factory, the sources said.
It is good news for Canada’s automaking industry, especially in the province of Ontario, after Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV said in March it would cut a shift at its Windsor assembly plant, leading to 1,500 job losses, and General Motors Co said last year it would shut its Oshawa factory by the end of 2019.
“Reports of this announcement would be a counter narrative for the recent bad news from other (automakers) that you can’t build profitably in Ontario,” said Flavio Volpe, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association.
The new production line will underpin 8,000 existing jobs, the government source said. No new jobs will be created, one industry source said.
(Reporting by Allison Lampert in Montreal and Steve Scherer in Ottawa; Editing by Richard Chang)
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