South Korea’s second-largest automaker Kia Motors aims to use its plant in Mexico as a base to target the North and South American auto markets, Hyundai Motor Group chairman said Wednesday.

Kia’s new manufacturing plant -- the automaker’s sixth overseas production base -- has an annual production capacity of 400,000 units with an investment of $3 billion, the company said.

“The new plant here in Mexico represents the next step in Kia Motors’ ambition to become one of the world’s leading automakers,” the group’s Chairman Chung Mong-koo said Wednesday at the completion ceremony of Kia Motors’ plant in New Leon, Northeastern Mexico.

The plant, which started to be built in October last year, began producing the C-segment Kia Forte in May.

Kia Motors said it plans to produce 100,000 units of the Kia Forte by the end of this year and gradually increase its annual production capacity to 400,000 units. At the start of 2017, the plant will produce the all-new fourth-generation B-segment Rio.

The construction of the Mexico plant has significant meaning for the affiliate of Hyundai Motor, which aims to jump into Mexico as well as North and South America, it said.

Mexico is the second-largest auto market in Central and South America with vehicle sales reaching 1.35 million units last year. Its domestic auto market is expected to grow to 1.75 million units by 2020, the automaker estimated.

“We aim to sell 55,000 units in Mexico this year with a 3.5 percent market share,” a Kia Motor official said.

From January to July, the company sold around 29,000 units including the K3, Sportage, Sorento, Soul and K5, grabbing a 3.4 percent share of the market.

Kia Motors views Mexico as a strategic base to target North and South America. Mexico has created a trilateral trade bloc with Canada and the US via the North America Free Trade Agreement and signed free trade agreement deals with 49 nations.

“In addition to supplying the local Mexican market, 80 percent of the facility’s production is destined for numerous other countries in the region, including the US and other Latin American markets,” the company’s official said.

The Korean automaker also said it aims to raise its proportion of overseas production from the current 49 percent to 55 percent.

By Shin Ji-hye (shinjh@heraldcorp.com)