TOYOTA to CREATE NORTHEAST HUB AT NEWARK TERMINAL

TOYOTA to CREATE NORTHEAST HUB AT NEWARK TERMINAL    Toyota Motor Sales USA Inc. has completed negotiations with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to consolidate Toyota’s mid-Atlantic and Northeast operations at Port Newark, starting in November 2003.
   Under the agreement, Toyota will begin a 15-year lease in Port Newark when its present lease expires in the port of Baltimore.
   Toyota has operated an auto processing facility at Port Newark since 1976. The automaker shipped 117,500 vehicles through the port last year, about 20 percent of the total vehicles processed there, said Richard M. Larrabee, port commerce director. Toyota shipped about 42,500 vehicles through the port of Baltimore.
   “These network changes will permit Toyota to deliver vehicles to its dealers more expeditiously,” said Jim Byers, vice president of Toyota Logistics Services.