RUSSIAN president Vladimir Putin attended an official ceremony to mark the start of construction of Toyota’s new manufacturing plant in St Petersburg.

The facility is due to begin production in 2007 and will have an initial annual production capacity of about 50,000 units.

At the start it will make about 20,000 units a year of the Camry, a mainstream seller in Russia. Last year, Toyota sold 47,000 vehicles in Russia with models including the Camry, Corolla, Avensis, RAV4 and Land Cruiser 100, as well as variants from the Lexus brand.

The event comes weeks after Toyota Peugeot Citroen Automobile (TPCA) marked the inauguration of its plant in the Czech Republic with a special ceremony.

The site, in Kolin, about 60 kilometres from the Czech capital Prague, produces three small cars on a common platform – the Citroen C1, the Peugeot 107 and the Toyota Aygo.