The plant, which covers 200,000 square meters, will bring 900 jobs to Coahuila's city of Monclova.

At the launching ceremony, GD's president Li Changjie said that he was confident that Mexico was a good place to invest. He added that the Monclova plant was part of a global strategy which would allow his company to meet the demand in North America and Europe.

The firm currently has an annual capacity of 60,000 tons of copper tubes for air conditioners. It is currently training 300 Mexican workers and plans to boost the annual capacity to 120,000 tons when the new workers are in place.

Also at the ceremony, the head of the Mexican trade promotion body ProMexico, Bruno Ferrari, said the new plant symbolized the confidence that major international firms had in Mexico and its competitive advantages, which included low industrial costs and an attractive exchange rate.

The GD, founded in Xinxiang, China's Hunan province, has a total workforce of 10,000 and gross sales of more than $2 billion worldwide.