TOKYO (Reuters) - Honda Motor Co (T:7267) will build a factory in Wuhan, China, to produce compact cars from spring 2019, boosting output capacity in the country by about a fifth, the Nikkei business daily said on Tuesday.
Japan's third-largest automaker by sales will spend "hundreds of millions of dollars" on the plant which will initially be able to produce 120,000 cars a year with output eventually doubling, the paper said.
Local partner Dongfeng Motor Group Co (HK:0489) will jointly operate the planned factory, the Nikkei said.
A Honda spokesman in Tokyo said the company was checking the report and declined to comment further. A new factory in China would be its seventh in the world's biggest car market.
In September auto sales in China strengthened for a consecutive fifth month, rising to a three-and-a-half year high.
In April Honda said it was looking to boost car sales in China to 1.07 million cars this year. In 2015 it sold 1.01 million vehicles last year, an increase of 32.5 percent from the previous 12 months.
Honda shares dipped 0.26 percent in early trading compared with a smaller 0.13 percent fall in the benchmark Nikkei 225 index.