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In fact Toyota's luxury brand Lexus will help burnish the carmaker's image among Korea's mass market while the company prepares to bring non-luxury Toyotas back to Korea, President Taizo Chigira said at a promotion event for the new Lexus LS600hL at the Tower Hotel in Seoul.

"Toyota headquarters will reintroduce the Toyota brand after Lexus is firmly established in the Korean market," Chigira said.

He didn't elaborate on which models Toyota might sell in Korea or when, saying relations between Toyota and Korea had to be taken into account first.

"We'll be able to answer those questions after reviewing the results of the Korea-U.S. FTA, social consensus, and the presence of the Lexus brand in Korean market," Chigira said.

In the 1970s, Toyota pulled out of Korea, which had diplomatic ties with Taiwan, in the hopes of making inroads into China. It withdrew from Korea again from 1996 to 2000 after lackluster sales for the Camry and Avalon.

(englishnews@chosun.com )