Hyundai Motor Co. is looking for a site in Brazil to build its first factory in South America, a company spokesman said Friday.

The South Korean company previously announced a plan to build in Brazil, and spokesman Jake Jang quoted Hyundai vice-chairman Kim Dong-jin as telling new Hyundai employees on Friday that a site was being sought. The plant is expected to have an annual production capacity of 100,000 vehicles.

Jang said the timing for construction of the plant and the beginning of production had not been decided.

Hyundai announced last month it would begin building a plant in St. Petersburg, Russia with an annual capacity of 100,000 vehicles. The company said it would complete the facility by 2009.

The automaker is expanding aggressively overseas and operates plants in China, India, Turkey and the United States. It is currently building one in the Czech Republic.

In Canada, the company operated a plant near Montreal in the early 1990s but shut it down after poorer than expected sales of its earlier models.

Hyundai, with affiliate Kia Motors Corp., is the world's sixth-largest automaker and has ambitions to crack the top five by 2010.

Kia has plants in China and Slovakia and is building one in the United States.