Having fallen silent half a decade ago, the production lines at Fiat's factory at Cordoba, Argentina, are now whirring back into life and staff have just celebrated the first car to leave the revived plant. The plant now has a production capacity of 50,000 units per year, and when it starts manufacturing a new pickup for Tata Motors this will rise to 75,000 units.

The launch of the new Fiat Siena 2008 in Argentine was held in San Telmo and was also the perfect opportunity for holding the official reopening of the Ferreyra car plant, the local factory of Fiat Group located in the city of Córdoba, which has not produced any cars during the last five years.

For the commencement of production of the new Siena, significant investments were made to modernise the facilities and for the training of the staff involved in production. The plant now has a production capacity of 50,000 units per year, and when it starts manufacturing a new pickup for Tata Motors this will rise to 75,000 units.

The closure of the Córdoba plant by Fiat in 2002 and the dismissal of its 300 employees was one of the most visible symbols of the Argentinean financial crisis that had deeply affected the local auto industry by that time. At the end of 2005, Christian Rattazzi the CEO of Fiat Auto Argentina announced that the Ferreyra plant wouldn'treopened until the local new car market had once more reached 500,000 units sold per year. This is a figure that will be surpassed this year.

In the hope of reviving production at the factory once economic conditions in Argentina improved, those responsible for the upkeep of the plant at Ferreyra took some decisions, such as maintaining in operational condition during the last five years the plant's major equipment, although production had ceased, a decision that proved to be right now that Fiat is making new investments in the country and aiming to recover its position in the Argentine and Latin American markets.

by Claudio Perlini