OREANDA-NEWS. Hitachi Automotive Systems Americas, Inc., the regional headquarters for the Americas within Hitachi Automotive Systems' global operations - today announced that Hitachi Automotive Systems Mexico, S.A. de C.V. (President: Takumi Shimaoka) has begun the construction of a new plant in Lerma City, Mexico to manufacture automotive systems.

Mexico continues to develop as a base for automotive manufacturing throughout the Americas, including Latin America. The numbers of foreign car maker factories are increasing. As a result, there are greater demands of localization to respond quickly to the community needs and to secure production capacity in Mexico for automotive equipment system manufacturers. Furthermore, due to NAFTA (Mexico, United States and Canada's North American Free Trade Agreement) and the Economic Complementation Agreement (ACE) No 55 regarding the automotive sector between Mexico and the member countries of the MERCOSUR (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay), there are tariff-free exports of automotive parts. This has led to enhanced introduction of automotive equipment system manufacturers into Mexico.

This new plant, 3rd for the Company and 5th for Hitachi Automotive Systems Group within Mexico, is being established to respond appropriately to support the production of vehicles in Mexico and to further strengthen the supply for the car makers throughout the Americas using the preferential trade agreement.

As a result of the establishment of the new plant, the Company will be securing approximately 180,000 square meters of land in Lerma City, Mexico. The Company will begin production of pistons for automotive parts as well as aluminum diecasts in May 2015. Further expansion of production is to be expected in the future.

Hitachi Automotive Systems will continue to work on establishing further expansion of the automotive equipment systems business in Mexico.