Toyota to invest $450 million to build new car plant in Malaysia

TOKYO (Reuters) - Toyota Motor Corp said on Wednesday it will invest about 49 billion yen ($450 million) to build a new, 50,000-cars-a-year factory in Malaysia to meet growing demand in the Southeast Asian country.

The construction would be part of a reorganisation of its Malaysian operations, under which the existing factory would stop building passenger cars and focus on commercial vehicles, Toyota said in a statement.

The new plant, to be located in Klang, in the state of Selangor, will begin operations in early 2019. It will employ new production technologies such as compact painting booths that are also set to be introduced at Toyota's other new plants, including in Mexico and China, it said.

(Reporting by Chang-Ran Kim; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)