(Reuters) - The president of Toyota Motor Corp. (7203.T) said on Thursday he is not studying ways in which Japan's top automaker could join a potential three-way alliance between Nissan Motor Co. (7201.T), Renault (RENA.PA) and General Motors Corp. (NYSE:GM - news). Katsuaki Watanabe's comment came after an article on BusinessWeek's Web site last week that top executives at Toyota were considering options to head off Nissan and Renault from forging an alliance with GM, reports Trend.
Toyota North American President Jim Press said earlier this week that Toyota was always open to alliances, but that it had had no discussions with GM about expanding ties.
GM, Renault SA and Nissan agreed last week to take 90 days to review the benefits of a potential alliance, which could lead to the birth of the world's biggest auto group with annual sales of 15 million vehicles.
Watanabe also reiterated Toyota's forecast for group-based global sales of 8.85 million units in calendar 2006, up 9 percent, and for global output to rise 10 percent to 9.06 million units. Those forecasts were issued in December last year.
Another Toyota executive said the automaker would aim to outsell its initial 2006 forecast for sales of 2.46 million units in the United States by a few tens of thousands of units.