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JATCO to Invest $220 Million in Second Manufacturing Plant in Mexico – Production Set to Start in Summer 2014

JATCO, a Nissan Group automatic transmission manufacturer (President: Takashi Hata, Paid-in Capital 29.9353 billion yen), today announced plans to invest 220 million dollars to establish its second plant in Aguascalientes, Mexico. The new plant is scheduled to start production in the summer of 2014 with annual production capacity of 400,000 units.

The company established JATCO Mexico, S.A. de C.V. in 2003 as the company’s first overseas manufacturing base and has been producing CVTs (Continuously Variable Transmissions) since 2005. Annual production volume increased to 0.8 million units last year and cumulative production reached 3.8 million units in 2012. With the production capacity of the existing plant projected to reach 1.3 million units, the addition of the second plant will bring the total Mexico-based production capacity to 1.7 million units in fiscal year 2016. At the start of operation of the second plant, the number of employees will increase to 3200 from the current 2200.

The new plant will be located in the same site as Nissan Mexicana’s new manufacturing complex which opens by the end of 2013 . The land area for JATCO’s new plant is 300,000 square meters and the building area will be 51,000 square meters.
Annual production capacity of the new plant will be 400,000 units and the company’s latest CVT, Jatco CVT8, will be produced there. The plant will be also used to produce automatic transmissions licensed from Daimler, which will be utilized in select Nissan and Infiniti vehicles beginning in 2016.

Automobile demand in the NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) market has been expanding and the ratio of environmentally friendly CVTs in the market has been on the rise in recent years.

Takashi Hata, President and CEO of JATCO commented on this investment, “Mexico is a very important base for JATCO in achieving the company’s objective to attain 1 trillion yen sales by fiscal year 2018. Since the start of production, JATCO Mexico has been steadily producing high quality products to meet the expanding demand for environmentally friendly CVTs and that prompted us to make further expansion in this country. Another important reason is a strong support from the governments of Mexico and Aguascalientes. With their continued cooperation, JATCO is determined to contribute to the economies of the region and the country.”

JATCO was established in 1999. Production volume for 2011 was 4.93 million units. With annual sales of 602.5 billion yen, the company is one of the very few companies dedicated for the development and production of transmissions. JATCO is targeting to achieve one trillion yen sales by fiscal year 2018. Toward this objective, the company has been expanding production in Mexico and China and its new CVT plant in Thailand is scheduled to commence operation in mid-2013.

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