Nissan to shift Frontier pickup output to Spain

NEW YORK, Oct 22 Reuters reported that Japan's Nissan Motor Co plans to largely shift output of its mainstay Frontier pickup truck from Japan to Spain as early as 2005 to raise global operational efficiency, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported.

Nissan, Japan's third-largest automaker, is considering cutting domestic output of the pickup truck, since 80 percent of an annual 75,000 output was for export to Europe and the Middle East, the paper's online Wednesday edition said without quoting sources.

It said the company may stop producing the model in its Shonan plant, west of Tokyo, and Saitama plant, north of Tokyo, all together. However, Nissan was expected to boost output of other models at the plants to maintain their capacity utilization, the newspaper said.

Nissan hopes to start producing an annual 90,000 Frontier pickup trucks in Spain by 2005 while at the same time increasing output at its Smyrna facility in Tennessee, the paper said.

A spokesman for Nissan's North America said he could not comment on the report.