The world's largest consumer electronics maker will build the new plant in Amagasaki, 400 kilometers (250 miles) west of the capital Tokyo, which will have an annual capacity of at least five million panels, a company spokesman said.

"The company is planning to build a brand new plasma panel factory next to its current Amagasaki plant," said Matsushita spokesman Akira Kadota, although he declined to confirm details such as the expected cost to build the new plant.

Matsushita president Kunio Nakamura has said the company wants to capture more than 40 percent of the plasma TV market, which is expected to reach 25 million units by 2010.

"With the company's plasma panel plants -- three in Japan and one in Shanghai -- about five million units still have to be covered by a new plant," Kadota said.

The technology giant, which makes the Panasonic brand, wants to begin construction as early as this summer, with the plant set to go onstream in summer 2007, Kyodo and the business daily Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported.

Matsushita aims to maintain its top share in the global plasma TV market and win the battle against the competing liquid crystal display (LCD) camp, which is also pursuing larger screen sizes and promoting cost reductions.

The firm's investment expected to be around 160 billion yen (1.40 billion dollars) was likely to be its largest-ever for a factory that is not a joint venture, Kadota said.

The global market for flat-screen TVs is expected to soar 60 percent to about 45 million units in 2006, the Nihon Keizai reported based on Matsushita's projections.

While LCD sets currently compose a bigger slice of the flat-screen TV pie in terms of sales volume, Matsushita is challenging their dominance by introducing larger plasma models.

The Japanese firm said Thursday it had developed the world's largest plasma-panel television set with a 103-inch (2.6 meter) screen.

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