New Nissan plant to become hub for Navara opens

The new plant will export the popular Navara small pickup truck, similar to the U.S. market Nissan Frontier. Exports will be to over 45 markets globally while the plant itself is situated in a key market for Nissan.

The plant is near Bangkok, Thailand where Nissan's Asian growth strategy has been centralized and marks the second production facility Nissan has built in Thailand, which is also home to a Nissan R&D facility. The facility is 580,000 square meters in size and will employ about 2,000 people. Production capacity will be about 150,000 units per year.

"Thailand is the engine of growth for us in the region, so we're excited to be opening this second plant today that will produce our latest pickup", said Fumiaki Matsumoto, Nissan's Executive Vice President responsible for global manufacturing. "It signifies our optimism for Thailand, as a growing automotive market, a center of manufacturing excellence for the region and an export hub for the world."

The global march for Nissan's aggressive growth strategy continues with this new facility's opening. It brings Nissan's total Thai production capability to about 370,000 units per year.The new plant began production on Tuesday with the new Navara pickup entering showrooms in Thailand today.

The addition of this new plant ties in with Nissan's overall growth, which itself is tied to Renault growth. The Renault-Nissan Alliance produced synergies worth 2.87 billion Euros in 2013 and is expected to be far higher this year thanks to integrated common module family vehicles planned for launch this year and next.