OREANDA-NEWS. October 5, 2012. Yesterday, during his tour of Latin America, Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche announced that the Group would invest around USD 170 million in its facility in Argentina in the next few years. At an official meeting with Argentina’s President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner in Buenos Aires, Zetsche said that the investments would be made in the area of new commercial vehicle models targeted primarily at the Latin American market. In addition, Daimler will create 850 new jobs at its Centro Industrial Juan Manuel Fangio plant in Buenos Aires. As a result, the facility’s workforce will increase by 40 percent.

“In the next few years, we will invest more than USD 170 million in the Juan Manuel Fangio plant here in Buenos Aires in order to prepare it for the production of new bus, truck, and van models,” said Dieter Zetsche, CEO of Daimler AG. “With this investment, we are highlighting the fact that Daimler is one of the leading commercial vehicle manufacturers in Argentina and also one of the region’s key employers.”

Daimler will produce a series of new Mercedes-Benz brand commercial vehicles in Argentina. They will include a midsized van, the Atron 1624 and Atron 1634 trucks, and the LO915, OF1722, and OH1518 bus chassis. More than 1,800 employees in Buenos Aires manufacture the current Sprinter model, as well as trucks and chassis for city buses. That makes Daimler the country’s only automaker to cover the entire commercial vehicle segment. “Because Argentina has demonstrated robust economic growth in recent years, it will remain a very promising market for us,” added Zetsche. “At the same time, Mercedes-Benz Argentina and the Centro Industrial Juan Manuel Fangio plant are important elements of our global production network.”