Nissan Motor Co. is considering investing tens of billions of yen to build a new plant in Thailand, aiming to double its annual production capacity in the country, sources said Wednesday.
Nissan currently produces March compacts at its existing Thai plant, which has an annual production capacity of 200,000 units. At the new facility, to be built nearby, the automaker plans to initially manufacture around 100,000 units a year and to ramp up annual production to 200,000 vehicles in the future, the sources said.
Nissan had initially planned to jointly develop a new pickup truck with Mitsubishi Motors Corp. and to manufacture it at MMC's Thai plant, but decided to produce its own trucks after the plan was abandoned.
Japanese carmakers' efforts to boost investments in Southeast Asian countries have picked up recently. Toyota Motor Corp. also plans to nearly double production capacity at a Thai plant for diesel engines for use in vehicles for emerging markets.