South Korean carmaker Hyundai Motor has completed the expansion of its vehicle assembly plant in Turkey with an investment of EUR475m.
The Turkish facility, Hyundai Assan Otomotive Sanayi (HAOS) in Izmit, was built in 1997 and it is claimed to be Hyundai's longest-operating factory outside Korea.
The expansion, which is expected to increase the plant's capacity to 200,000 by 2014, will bring the company's overall European production capacity to 500,000 units per year.
Hyundai's new expanded Turkish assembly plant will be used to produce the upgraded i10 and the i20 models in the future and by the end of 2013 about 90% of vehicles sold in Europe will also have been built in the region.
So far, the company has invested over EUR1bn in its Turkish plant, which led to the construction of its second manufacturing facility in Europe, Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Czech, in Nosovice, Czech Republic.
