US tyre manufacturer Goodyear will build a new plant in central Mexico with an investment of 550 million dollars, the company said Friday, according to dpa. Goodyear hopes to make about 6 million tyres per year starting in 2017 at the plant, which it plans to build in San Luis Potosi, chief executive Richard Kramer said Friday in Mexico City. A total of 1,000 jobs are to be created at the new facility, he said. The car industry is booming in Mexico. Last week, Japan's Toyota, the world's largest automaker, announced a 1-billion-dollar investment in the country and US carmaker Ford said it was investing 2.5 billion dollars. Mexico is currently the world's seventh-largest vehicle manufacturer and plans to join the top five by 2020 with production valued at about 5 million dollars a year, Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo said last week. Comparatively low wages, good infrastructures, proximity to the crucial US market and more than 40 free trade agreements with other nations make Mexico a preferred site to manufacture vehicles.
