. >>> japanese automaker mazda has celebrated the official opening of a new plant in mexico. the company chairman called the factory mazda's most important global base. takashi yamanouchi was joined by mexican president enrique pena nieto at the opening ceremony in the central state on thursday. >> translator: mazda is taking its future of this new plant. it's our most important global production base. we are determined to make it a success and begin a new chapter in the company's history. >> the plant began making cars for north america in january. in april, it will start production for the mexican market. mazda is hoping to raise the plant's annual capacity to 230,000 vehicles in about two years. mexico has free trade agreements with the united states, and south american countries that allow car exports to these market with low tariffs. mazda's japanese rivals, nissan and honda, have also built plants in mexico. that's all for business news for this hour. i'll leave you with a look at the region's markets. >>> legislators of the capital kiev have approved an interim governm

another automaker, mazda, expects to post a record profit for this full business year ending in march. the executives say group sales for the april to december period rose 26% to around $19 billion compared to a year ago. its operating profit hit the highest for the period, topping $1.2 billion. the executives say the annual operating profit is likely to raise from an earlier estimate. that's due to brisk new car sales in japan, as well as europe, and an improvement in export profits. if the projection is realized, mazda would post its highest operating profit for the first time in six years. let's get a check of the markets now. recent weak sentiment in europe is recovering somewhat now. london is now higher after opening lower by about a quarter percent. we're seeing declines for frankfurt down about 0.2% and paris' cac 40 is up about 0.1%. still many investors reluctant to take new positions ahead of the european central bank's policy meeting. that's on thursday, as well as important economic data out of the u.s. earlier many asian bourses rebounded from tuesday's sell-off. tok tok

mazda, audi adding plants there. this is something that should be written about and discussed. >> typically the big three automakers herethis country have kept making the big cars in the detroit area here in the united states, and they've shipped the smaller, cheaper cars with the smaller profit margins to mexico to be made there. now the mexican workforce is matching the u.a.w. in quality and in performance at a fraction of the cost. i read this morning that at a number of mexican plants, the workers there make between one-sixth and one-seventh times lower amounts of money than the people do here in the united states, and so the big three, even though they took -- two of the three -- took great big bail outs from the government to the tune of $80 billion to keep jobs here, they're shipping them to mexico because they can make more money there and the quality is great. >> point right on. $3.20 an hour. they're making about three million cars a year now and it's going up. >> the differential factor is they call it quote first world productive and quality in third world wages. >> we are in midtown manhattan where i mentio