Hyundai new plant in Tijuana
By Adina Moloman
Sources: North American Die Casting Association, Maquilaportal.com
Hyundai, the Korean automotive leader set up its first plant in Tijuana back in 1989. This year Hyundai announced an investment for US$131 million in their new aluminum Die Cast Plant, as their third investment in Tijuana, Baja California.
The construction of their new facility plant starts in September and is estimated that will start operating later this year. By the end of the year it is expected to start the first phase of their operation, which will reach its full capacity in January 2014 and will produce 900,000 units of three automotive parts such as Engine Blocks, Engine Cylinder Heads, and Transmission Cases.
According to Governor Jose Guadalupe Osuna Millan and Kenny Lee, company’s CEO, this new investment in Baja California represents more than 50% of the resources initially invested in the region and will increase the number of Tijuana Manufacturing Jobs with 300 new jobs in addition to the 2,300 present jobs in existing Hyundai’s plants.
With this new investment the automotive cluster located in Tijuana, will reach the number of 51 automotive plants which generates over 15,000 jobs.
The year, 2012, brought good investments in Tijuana thus far, the estimated is around US$600 million in investment, mainly in Mexican Maquiladoras, which has materialized in several plant expansions of multinational like Hyundai, Mabamex, Medtronic, Turbotec, Welch Allyn and Plantronics.
US remain the main destination for exports from the Mexican automotive sector.
All the cars manufactured or assembled at the local cluster are destined to export: while in 2008, more that 70% of the automotive industry’s exports were shipped to the US, in 2011 less than 65% of Mexico’s auto exports reached the US market, the rest of the automotive production is reaching Canada’s market and Latin America, mainly the Brazilian market.
Last year, Mexico stood in eighth place among the top global automotive manufacturers.
