Fiat to invest $1.75 bln in Brazil's new factory
- Source: Xinhua
- [08:49 December 16 2010]
- Comments
Italian automaker Fiat on Tuesday announced a plan to invest $1.75 billion to build a new car factory in the Port and Industrial Complex of Suape in Brazil's Pernambuco state.
The factory, once completed, will have an annual production capacity of 200,000 units, creating 3,500 jobs, according to a statement released by the company.
The building of the factory is part of Fiat's investment plan in Brazil for 2011-2014, which totals about 5.5 billion dollars. The rest -- or 3.75 billion dollars -- will be invested in Minas Gerais state.
"We are experiencing a historical event for Brazil and for the Northeast Region," Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said when commenting on the investment.
"By 2014 we plan to achieve a sales volume of over 1 million vehicles a year in Brazil, which represents a strategic area for our expansion. Our group also aims to contribute to the economic, technological and industrial development in Brazil, where we have been producing cars for almost 40 years," said Sergio Marchionne, CEO of Fiat Group.
"Fiat reiterates its confidence in Brazil, by making the biggest investment cycle in the country," Cledorvino Bellini, chairman of Fiat in Brazil, said in the statement.
In the first nine months of 2010, Fiat Group's revenues reached 41.2 billion euros ($55 billion), an increase of 13 percent over the same period last year.
