Yucatán, Mexico - Grupo Modelo, best known as the maker of Corona beer, on Monday opened its new Montejo beer production facility in the municipality of Hunucmá, about 17 kilometers from Mérida in the Mexican state of Yucatán.

The company invested 8.5 billion pesos in the brewery, Grupo Modelo's eighth in Mexico, which includes an adjacent factory to manufacture aluminum cans that enables the beer maker to trim production costs and improve competitiveness.

The one-million-square-meter plant will produce the brands León, Montejo, Victoria, León Negra and Corona Extra, among others. The aluminum factory will provide cans not only for the beers produced at the Yucatán facility, but also for its other operations in Mexico, according to Mauricio Leyva of parent company AB InBev and manager of Grupo Modelo.

The company, Leyva said, decided to settle in Yucatán because of its geographic location, which is relevant for the export of beer to the 80 other countries that Mexico serves.

At the new brewery's opening ceremony, which was attended by President Enrique Peña Nieto, Leyva said that in its first phase of production the Hunucmá plant will produce 7 million hectoliters (roughly 1.9 billion bottles) of beer annually, and is expected to reach 15 million Hectoliter by its third year of operation.

With this eighth plant now operating, Grupo Modelo plans to produce 75 million hectoliters of beer per year in Mexico, since its current capacity is 60 million hectoliters in the seven facilities that were already in service.

According to the latest data published by The Barth Report, Mexico is now the fifth largest producer of beer in the world, with an annual output of 8.2 billion liters.