DETROIT -- Canada is on the list of prospects for the next Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. assembly plant expansion in North America, says the company's chief executive officer Carlos Ghosn.

When Nissan sales in Canada reach 10 per cent of the company's total North American sales, that would be the time to consider locating a plant here, Mr. Ghosn said yesterday.

He cautioned that no plans for expansion beyond the company's existing plants in Mississippi, Tennessee and Mexico are under consideration.

"It would be a logical conclusion," however, that if Canadians want Nissan to build a plant in this country, they should buy more of the company's vehicles, he told a group of reporters at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.

He made his statements just one day after the Japan-based auto maker reported record sales of more than 70,000 vehicles in Canada in 2003 and joked that some of the responsibility for luring a new plant lies with Nissan Canada Inc. president Brad Bradshaw, who sat at the same table in a room at Detroit's Cobo Hall. Last year's Canadian sales amounted to more than 6 per cent of the auto maker's overall North American sales.

Based on Nissan's plans to boost North American sales to more than 1.3 million by the end of 2005 from about 1.07 million last year, the implication is that Canada could be the site of a new plant if sales here reach 130,000.

Nissan now has enough assembly capacity to produce 1.35 million vehicles in North America, with its latest plant in Canton, Miss., gearing up to crank out 400,000 vehicles a year including such new products as the Titan pickup truck, Quest minivan and the Armada sport utility vehicle, as well as the Altima mid-sized sedan.

"On paper, in the next two to three years, we're going to have a problem," Mr. Ghosn said. By 2006, the auto maker's North American assembly capacity could be fully utilized.

But as other senior executives from auto makers have stated as recently as earlier this week, government incentives will be necessary if Canada wants to win a plant, he added.

The auto maker received incentives from governments in Mexico for recent expansions and hundreds of millions of dollars from Mississippi for its Canton plant, the first auto assembly plant in that state.

"Incentives are part of the game everywhere," Mr. Ghosn said. "This is part of the global game."

Flexibility of the work force is another key issue.

Global auto makers are sizing up China and comparing it against Mexico, Japan, the United States and Canada, he said.

"If one country has a reputation to be inflexible, guess what? Nobody's going to go there."