PHOTO: BMW Website

FRANKFURT_ German top-of-the-range carmaker BMW is to invest around 1.0 billion euros ($1.3 billion) in a brand new factory in Mexico, an industry said on Wednesday.

The plant will have capacity to build around 150,000 cars each year starting in 2019, the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Contacted by AFP, the Munich-based maker declined to comment on the information, but a spokesman pointed out that the company was scheduled to make an announcement on Thursday.

A factory in Mexico would boost BMW’s ability to supply the North American market. It already has an assembly plant for sports utility vehicles (SUVs) in Spartanburg in the United States.

Mexico appears to be increasingly attracting car makers.

Last week, Renault-Nissan and Daimler announced they would set up a joint venture in the country to make compact cars.

The Franco-Japanese and German groups, which have cooperated since 2010, said they would create 5,700 jobs and invest 1.0 billion euros in the construction of a brand new plant in Aguascalientes, north-central Mexico.