Mitsubishi Motors to Hike Spending 40%

Mitsubishi Motors Corp. plans to invest more than 600 billion yen ($5.3 billion) through fiscal 2019 on equipment and product development, up from 437 billion yen in the previous three years, says The Nikkei.

The spending plan will allocate more than 100 billion yen ($890 million) each to R&D and equipment per year, according to the Tokyo-based newspaper. It says the initiative will concentrate on developing electrified powertrains and expanding production capacity in China and Indonesia.

MMC, which is now controlled by Nissan Motor Co., will reveal further details about its plan on Wednesday. MMC announced earlier that it aims for global sales of 1.25 million vehicles and a 6% operating profit margin in three years.

MMC is spending 10 billion yen ($89 million) to open a factory in China in 2018 with the capacity to assemble 150,000 engines annually. The carmaker hopes to quadruple its sales in China to 300,000 vehicles by the early 2020s. Last spring MMC opened an assembly plant in Indonesia with annual capacity to make 160,000 vehicles per year.