Mazda Motor Corp. President Takashi Yamanouchi said the automaker will raise its fiscal 2015 output capacity in Mexico, setting its sights on the North and Latin American markets.
Mazda changed the annual output plan at a plant in Mexico, now under construction, to 230,000 units from the initial plan of 140,000 units to boost its capacity of manufacturing vehicles equipped with the Skyactiv fuel efficient technology.
"We will create a global supply system while maintaining our output size in Japan," Yamanouchi told a news conference Friday, calling the plant a "strategic base" for competing in countries such as the U.S.
The company, based in Hiroshima Prefecture, said it will start manufacturing compact cars for Toyota Motor Corp. to be sold in the North American market in the summer of 2015 at the plant in Mexico, in line with a deal they reached last year.
Of the revised output capacity of 230,000 units in the year starting in April 2015, roughly 50,000 units will be Toyota vehicles, according to Mazda.
The plant in Mexico, scheduled to start operating between January and March of 2014, will produce vehicles including the Mazda 2 and Mazda 3. Its workforce will be raised to around 4,500 people from 3,000 people, the automaker said.