In more good news for Mexico’s strong economy, Japanese automaker Nissan announced last week that it plans to build a new plant in Aguascalientes Mexico, according to reports by Reuters. The new factory will require an initial investment of $2.6 billion and will mark the car company’s third factory in the country.

Nissan is Japan’s second largest automaker and the company is currently looking to expand production in cost-competitive nations like Mexico, turning the locations into major regional export bases. Mexico in particular is slated to become Nissan’s main hub for exporting products across the Americas, according to Reuters.

The new Nissan plant is scheduled to become fully operational by the end of 2013, reaching a maximum capacity of 600,000 cars each year. This will effectively double the car manufacturer’s production in Mexico, causing numbers to reach upwards of 1.3 million vehicles each year, as compared with only 1 million vehicles produced annually in Japan, according to the report.

Also of note, the Japanese automaker is expected to use one of the new Aguascalientes plant’s three planned production lines to manufacture vehicles for Daimler AG. Passenger vehicles assembled at the plant will be offered for sale mainly in North America, following an April 2010 alliance between Nissan, Renault and Daimler.

“Nissan continues to grow throughout the world and in order to reach the objectives of our strategic business plan, Nissan Power 88, we continue to study opportunities to install additional capacity in key markets,” said David Reuter.

This follows previous statements from Nissan stating that it has been looking into new opportunities in Mexico after working closely with the federal and state governments. This will mark Daimler’s first passenger car production in Mexico, while Nissan’s two existing plants are scheduled to build nearly 700,000 subcompact cars and pickup trucks in 2011.