adminNissan Motor Company is accelerating operations in Mexico to allow the production of one million vehicles annually within three years, putting the country on par with Japan as an export hub for the carmaker.
About 700 000 of that total will be exported to such markets as the US, Canada and South America, Nissan Chief Executive Officer Carlos Ghosn said.
“Seven hundred thousand exported from one country is going to probably make Mexico as important as Japan in terms of export of cars for Nissan,” Ghosn told reporters yesterday.
“Mexico is a very competitive country.”
Nissan, already the biggest carmaker in Mexico, yesterday opened a US$2 billion plant that will be its third in the Latin American nation. Ghosn this month announced an overhaul of the company’s management as he aims for an 8 percent operating profit margin by the year ending March 2017, after the GT-R and Maxima maker cut its annual profit forecast by 15 percent.
The new factory, in Aguascalientes, will initially produce Sentra small cars and is designed to build as many as four different models per assembly line. Nissan declined to say what else will be built there.
Japan’s second-biggest carmaker also operates another plant in Aguascalientes, which is about 482 kilometres northwest of Mexico City, and one in Cuernavaca, about 65km south of the capital.
Under Ghosn, Nissan’s production capacity in Mexico has surged to supply the domestic market as well as take advantage of lower costs and trade agreements to export vehicles. The company is the country’s domestic sales leader, according to the Mexican Automobile Industry Association. It built 584 880 vehicles in Mexico in the first 10 months of the year, 23 percent of the nation’s automobile production and more than any other manufacturer, according to the auto industry group known as AMIA. Nissan’s output in Mexico last year totalled 683 520.
“By the end of 2016, the plan is one million cars out of Mexico,” Ghosn said in a Bloomberg Television interview.
“This new plant will allow us to continue our offensive on the Mexican market, and to be able to support the US operation.”
Nissan rose as much as 1,8 percent to 922 yen in Tokyo trading, before changing hands at 915 yen as of 12:51pm local time. The stock has gained 13 percent this year, trailing the 47 percent gain for the Topix Transportation Equipment Index.
The maker of Pathfinder SUVs and Leaf electric cars this month cut its full-year profit forecast on slower sales in some emerging markets and a recall of 910 000 vehicles.
Nissan has said it’s spending more than $5 billion to expand capacity in the US, Mexico and Brazil. The new Aguascalientes plant employs 3 000 people and has initial capacity to make 175 000 vehicles a year, Nissan said. – Bloomberg.
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