Hyundai Motor dedicated its plant in Brazil on Nov. 9 in a ceremony held in Piracicaba, the Sao Paolo State, Brazil, at the new car plant capable of turning out 150,000 sedans annually, the carmaker said recently.

Chairman Chung Mong-koo in his dedication speech at the ceremony, said he hoped that the new Hyundai auto plant would go a long way towards solidifying friendly ties between Korea and Brazil in the days to come.

He said the new auto plant will create 5,000 new jobs in Brazil, while helping to develop the local car parts industry, making a large contribution to the local industry and economy, the Hyundai Motor chairman said.

Vice President Michel Temer said in his congratulatory speech that the dedication of the new Hyundai Motor plant is an excellent example of cooperation and fusion between a business, the state government for which he is extremely proud, and with the residents of the local community.

Mayor Farzas Negri of Piracicaba said the plant site used to be a sugar beet refining plant to produce ethanol from sugar beets grown in the area.

The Brazilian auto plant is the first one in South America for the Korean carmaker and the last link in Hyundai’ s global network of car plants in Europe, North America, and Asia. Its car plants in the United States produce 300,000 cars annually; Chinese plants make 1 million cars per year; the Indian plants make 60,000 units; Turkey’ s plants produce 100,000 units; the Czech Republic plants make 300,000 units; the Russian plant produces 200,000 units; and the new Brazilian plant will be making 150,000 units, accounting for 59 percent of the automaker’ s total car production annually.

Hyundai Motor’ s overseas car production share is about the same as major auto makers in the world including Toyota with 60 percent, GM with 79 percent, Honda at 72 percent, Volkswagen with 70 percent, and Nissan with 75 percent.

Chairman Chung, upon meeting reporters following the dedication ceremony for the Brazilian car plant, said the overseas car plants for Hyundai Motor will be enough for now, signaling he will focus on the improvement of the quality of Hyundai cars rather than the numbers. He said both Hyundai and Kia turn out over 7 million cars annually both for export and domestic sales and no more overseas car plants will be built other than the one currently being built in China, Kia’ s third Chinese car plant, and maybe another in Brazil, Chung said.

He said Brazil has a large car market and either Hyundai or Kia would build another Korean plant in the country depending on how the car market develops in the days ahead. Hyundai may double its car production capacity soon if its car sales jumps fast.

Hyundai officials said with the new car plant in Brazil completed, there is no need to worry about the shut down of another Hyundai plant for some reason or another because they can now rely on other plants overseas to take up the slack due to labor problems or accidents and they won’ t have to turn to the domestic plants to produce more.

Hyundai Motor now has car plants in all BRIC nations, whose demand for cars has been growing faster than other parts of the world despite the global economic crisis. Last year, the average world car demand growth stood at 4.8 percent, far below that in BRIC nations, rising 8.5 percent with total sales of 25.15 million cars, 34.1 percent of total global cars sales.

China has become the largest car market in the world, surpassing the U.S. in 2009, and Brazil has emerged as the number four car market in 2010, while India ranks sixth and Russia is seventh.

Hyundai Motor car plants in BRIC nations alone can turn out 1.95 million cars now that its Brazilian car plant is completed.