Mexico City, July 7 (IANS/EFE): Anglo-Dutch consumer products giant Unilever opened a $100 million state-of-the-art deodorant plant in the central Mexican state of Morelos that incorporates solar energy and will supply the domestic, US, Canadian, Central American, Caribbean and Colombian markets.

The plant, located in the CIVAC industrial park in the city of Jiutepec, is Unilever's fourth aerosol plant in the world and will employ 250 people on five production lines, each capable of making 500 aerosol deodorants per minute.

The first phase of the project calls for the operation of two production lines, manufacturing 240 million Axe-, Rexona- and Dove-brand deodorant and anti-perspirant units annually, Unilever Mexico president Fabio Prado said.

Unilever plans to achieve total production of 600 million units annually, with 50 percent of output bound for the Mexican market and the rest for export to the US, Canada, Central America, the Caribbean and Colombia.

Mexico "is one of the seven best countries in the world for producing manufactured goods, and the best country in the world, the most competitive, the one with the lowest costs, for producing manufactures that are going to be exported to the United States", Mexican President Felipe Calderon said during the plant's inauguration Tuesday.

The Unilever plant will double "the production of aerosol deodorants in Mexico" and create 1,000 indirect jobs, Calderon said.

Unilever has five plants and employs 4,300 people in Mexico.