New Japan stimulus good for car sales - Nissan

Japan's latest stimulus package should give a prompt boost to the car market, a senior executive at Nissan Motor Co, Japan's No.3 automaker, said on Friday.

Japan's ruling party unveiled a $154 billion stimulus plan on Thursday, equal to around 3 percent of GDP.

In the 15.4 trillion yen package, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) pledged more loans for hard-pressed small businesses, support for the jobless and subsidies for solar panels and environmentally friendly cars.

"It's very good. I've been expecting this," Toshiyuki Shiga, Nissan's chief operating officer, told reporters in Beijing.

In the latest stimulus package, a total of 370 billion yen will be used to subsidise consumers trading their old cars in for more fuel-efficient ones.

"Customers have to rush to buy," he said, whereas an existing tax incentive scheme, which runs for three years, lacks that immediacy.

Japan's auto industry body forecast in March the lowest domestic vehicle sales in 32 years for the coming business year, saying it would seek government help to stimulate demand.

The Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association (JAMA) said it expected sales of new cars, trucks and buses to fall 8 percent to 4,297,600 units for the year starting on April 1.

Nissan and its partner France's Renault (RENA.PA) said earlier on Friday they would supply electric cars to China, the world's largest auto market.

The Franco-Japanese alliance will provide the Chinese government with a comprehensive plan for marketing and for a battery-charging network, with the aim of selling electric vehicles to China in early 2011.

Nissan said in February it aimed to expand its Chinese vehicle sales by 4.6 percent in 2009 in a market that has become one of the few remaining hopes for the embattled industry.

The firm is expecting to sell 570,000 cars and light commercial vehicles in 2009 in China, which accounted for about 15 percent of its global sales last year.

Shiga expects China, the world's largest auto market and the only country where Nissan is growing, to grow faster than target.