Japanese carmaker Nissan’s Mexican subsidiary, Nissan Mexicana, has begun the construction on a $2bn automotive manufacturing facility in Aguascalientes, Mexico.
Announced in January 2012, the company said the new facility will increase the company's capacity to meet the rising demand for its vehicles in the domestic and international markets.
Nissan Mexicana vice president Armando Ávila said, "With this investment, we will be able to increase our manufacturing capacity from over 600,000 units per year, to more than 800,000 units by the close of 2013, continuing our record setting production rates in Mexico."
The new facility will be 2.5-times larger than the existing plant in Aguascalientes and it is also the company's third manufacturing complex in Mexico along with second in the region.
Nissan said that the Phase I of the facility will be operational by late 2013 and will manufacture 175,000 compact vehicles per year.
First phase of project will include stamping, body, painting and final assembly facilities, as well as a supplier park and a proving ground.
The addition of new facility will help the company to produce more than one million units per year in Mexico in the midterm.
According to the carmaker, the vehicles produced by it in Mexico will have 80% domestic content.
Nissan currently operates facilities in Mexico - one 85 km south of Mexico City in Cuernavaca that manufactures small cars and light commercial and pickup truck models and a second plant in Aguascalientes that produces small cars for the domestic, US and Latin American markets.
