TOKYO (AP) – Nissan Motor Co. will shift production of its top-selling compact car to India, Thailand and other nations, the company said Friday.

The Nissan March model, and its counterpart Micra model for French alliance partner Renault SA, are now produced in Japan and Britain.
Starting in 2010, the model will be produced in India, Thailand and three other nations, company spokeswoman Kana Minamidate said.
But Nissan has not announced production of the March will end in Japan, she said, declining comment on a report Friday in Japan’s top business daily The Nikkei that said all domestic March production will be moved to Thailand.
Japan’s No. 3 automaker now produces 47,000 March compact cars a year at its Oppama plant near Tokyo for domestic sale.
Moving production to Thailand would take advantage of the surging yen and cut costs by about 30 percent, the Nikkei said.
If that happens, it would mark the first time Nissan — or any major Japanese automaker — has moved domestic production of a best-selling model overseas.
The dollar’s plunge to 13-year lows, at below 90 yen lately, has fueled speculation that Japanese automakers may move production overseas to take advantage of it.
The weak dollar has so far proved devastating for the Japanese automakers by diminishing the value of overseas sales when converted into yen.
The U.S. financial crisis, which has squelched auto demand by about a third in the key U.S. market, is also hurting the Japanese carmakers.
On Thursday, Nissan said it was slashing domestic production by 64,000 vehicles in February and March to trim inventories and adjust to a drastic slide in global demand.
That comes on top of earlier production cuts, which now totals 225,000 vehicles. Nissan had initially expected to produce 1.38 million vehicles in Japan for the fiscal year.
On Friday, Honda Motor Co. said it is slashing production in Japan by an additional 56,000 vehicles, trimming its Japan production plans for the fiscal year through March to 1.168 million vehicles — down drastically from an initial 1.31 million.