Nissan Motor and Chinese partner Dongfeng Motor started building its second car manufacturing plant in Guangzhou city's Huadu district, which will become the largest production base for Japan's No. 3 automaker, Kyodo News reported.

Construction of Nissan's new plant in southern China's Guangdong province is scheduled to go into operation in 2012. With an annual capacity of 240,000 vehicles, Dongfeng Nissan joint venture's total capacity will be increased to 600,000 units.

Dongfeng Nissan Passenger Vehicle Co., a joint venture between Nissan Motor and its local Chinese partner Dongfeng Motor Corp., is building the plant with a total investment of 5 billion yuan ($732 mln). The Tiida compact, Livina series and other Nissan models are made at the factory.

Together with its Xiangfan plant in central Hubei province and Zhengzhou Nissan in central Henan province, Nissan Motor expects to raise its production capacity for Nissan-brand vehicles China to 900,000 units by 2012.

Nissan's China sales rose 39% to 756,000 units in 2009. The company expects its sales (of imported and locally-made vehicles) in the Chinese market to grow 12% this year.

In the first four months, Dongfeng Nissan sold 139,724 vehicles, achieving 36% of its full-year sales target for 2010. The venture's April sales rose 59% to 43,891 units.