Despite its offer of more than US$100 million as incentive money for Toyota to move its headquarters to Charlotte, North Carolina lost out to a Texas offer which is less than US$50 million.

Toyota, the world's largest carmarker, announced that it has chosen to move from the Los Angeles area to the suburb of Plano in Dallas, Texas even as local officials only offered less than US$50 million.

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North Carolina Commerce Secretary Sharon Decker and Toyota both agreed that the Japanese carmaker's decision to move its North American headquarters outside of Southern California is not mainly due to incentive money.

Decker said her state had to offer a significantly significantly larger than Texas to be competitive because the Lone Star State has no corporate or income tax.

"Toyota considered including geography, trasportation, the cost of living and education opportunities... Incentives were just one of many considerations," said Toyota Motor Sales USa Inc spokesman Mike Michels.

Plano, Texas is also near the Dallas / Fort Worth Airport, where American Airlines has direct flights to Tokyo, an important factor because Toyota executives travel to and from Japan hundreds of times year.

Texas Governor Rick Perry led the role in dangling the US$40 million offered to Toyota. The fund will be taken from the taxpayer-funded Texas Enterprises Fund. Another US$6.75 million was offered by officials of Plano.

Toyota started with a list of 100 areas for its new headquarters but the list was trimmed to four. All of the four areas were visited and assessed but Toyota's North America CEO Jim Lentz said the Dallas metro area stood out as top choice.

"It became quite clear that the Dallas metro area was far and above the best choice," Lentz said.

Toyota's new headquarters in Plano is expected to bring together around 2,900 employees and up to another 1,000 contract workers from finance, manufacturing, engineering, marketing and sales.

TagsToyota, Toyota USA, Toyota Texas