NEW YORK (AP) — Toyota says it will begin sending U.S.-built Corolla sedans to 18 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean starting next year.

The world's biggest car maker said Thursday that production of the U.S.-built vehicles is set to start at its Tupelo, Miss., plant in April 2014. Toyota Motors Corp. expects to export more than 7,500 of the sedans to Latin America and the Caribbean during the first sales year.

Toyota hit an all-time export record of more than 124,000 U.S.-built vehicles to 21 global markets in 2012. That was up 45 percent from a year earlier.