Denso to build 3rd Mexico car parts plant

Tuesday, December 18, 2001 at 09:30 JST MONTERREY, Mexico — Japan Today reported that Denso Corp, Japan's largest manufacturer of auto parts, will build its third plant in Mexico at a cost of $48 million, company executives said on Monday.

Kiyotoshi Yano, director general of Denso Mexico, told a news conference the plant would be built in Guadalupe, outside the industrial hub Monterrey in northern Nuevo Leon and employ 700 workers.

The new plant will start operating in 2003, said Jorge Haros, chief of engineering and planning.

"The hope is to gradually increase production to 2 million parts a year," he said.

Denso Mexico began operating in Mexico in 1994 with a plant near Monterrey. This year the Japanese firm's subsidiary GAC Corp began producing air conditioner components at a new plant in northern Coahuila state.

Other factories in Mexico have closed amid an economic slowdown here in tandem with a slowdown in the U.S. economy, which takes 85 percent of Mexican exports. (This story was provided to Japan Today by Reuters News)