BRATISLAVA, Jan. 13 (Xinhua) -- Kia's Slovak car plant, the South Korean automaker's first European facility, produced 339,500 passenger cars in 2016, slightly more than that in 2015, data revealed Friday.
The car plant, located in the Slovak capital Bratislava, also churned out 612,900 engines in 2016, up 5 percent year on year from a year earlier, according to the Kia plant's spokesman Jozef Bace.
The majority of the engines were exported, with the diesel engine of 1.7 litres making up the largest share of all the engines, at about 24 percent.
According to Kia Motors Slovakia president and CEO Eek-Hee Lee, the automaker will invest 130 million euro (139 million U.S. dollars) into the plant in 2017.
Most of the investment will be spent on adjustments to production lines vis-a-vis the manufacturing of a new car model.
It currently employs around 3,800 people.
