Toyota Buys Site in Tijuana
Toyota Motor Co. has purchased 700 acres southeast of downtown Tijuana in Baja California and plans to develop it into a major manufacturing facility, the company said Friday.
Several major auto suppliers eventually will locate on or near the site Toyota is purchasing. Toyota will begin by supplying components for light-truck assembly at its Fremont, Calif., plant but plans to expand the production to the entire vehicle, sources close to the deal said. The factory will be Toyota’s first in Mexico.
Mexico’s federal commissioner of border affairs, Ernesto Ruffo, told The Times in October that Toyota was near a decision on building a Baja facility and was considering locations in Tijuana, Ensenada and Mexicali.
The facility will mean hundreds of millions of dollars in new investment and at least 1,000 new jobs for Baja.
The components to be made in Mexico now are produced in Long Beach. Toyota said it plans to make other components in Long Beach and does not anticipate layoffs among the 540 jobs there.
“The Long Beach plant is still very much a part of our long-term future,” Dennis Cuneo, senior vice president for Toyota Motor Manufacturing North America Inc., told Associated Press.
The Tijuana site selection caps intense competition among Mexican states and cities for the economic benefits the Toyota facility will generate. Monterrey and Guanajuato also were considered by Toyota, real estate sources said.
Toyota currently has four other North American manufacturing facilities in Indiana; Kentucky; Ontario, Canada; and in Fremont in partnership with General Motors. The Tijuana land is in the Gandul business zone, sources said.
“They chose Baja because of the synergy available between the Fremont and the Baja facilities,” a real estate source said.
