RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) -- German automaker Volkswagen announced Monday it will invest 2.6 billion reais (812 million U.S. dollars) at its plant in Sao Bernardo do Campo, near Sao Paulo.
According to the statement, the investment will go toward modernizing the plant's assembly lines, where the company's Polo model is already being produced with the Virtus sedan to begin production in 2018.
The investment, announced in celebration of the plant's 60th birthday, is part of a 7 billion reais (2.2 billion U.S. dollars) investment plan Volkswagen is carrying across Brazil between 2016 and 2020.
"This investment...embraces the work of our engineers and the preparation of the Anchieta assembly line to receive various models," explained David Powels, Volkswagen's president for Brazil and South America.
Despite this investment, Volkswagen is not planning to bring on any new workers, with Powels stating that the Brazilian market's contraction in the last three years did not make this possible.
Volkswagen is seeking to gain more ground in Brazil, where it finished in third place for total sales in the first quarter of 2017, with a market share of 12.6 percent.
