TOKYO, Oct. 24 (Kyodo) —Nissan Motor Co. is considering investing some tens of billions of yen to build a new plant in Thailand, aiming to double its annual production capacity in the Southeast Asian country, people familiar with the matter said Wednesday.
Nissan currently produces March compact cars at its existing Thai plant, which has an annual production capacity of 200,000 units. At the new factory, which will be built near the existing one, the automaker plans to initially manufacture around 100,000 units a year and increase annual production to 200,000 units in the future, they said.
Nissan had initially planned to develop a new pickup truck jointly with Mitsubishi Motors Corp. and manufacture the new model at Mitsubishi's Thai plant, but decided to produce such trucks at its own plant after the plan was abandoned.
Japanese automakers' moves to rev up investments in Southeast Asian countries have picked up recently. Toyota Motor Corp., Japan's largest automaker, also plans to nearly double the production capacity at a Thai plant for diesel engines for the use of vehicles targeting emerging markets.
