BMW said it will build the new Mini in the Netherlands starting this summer in a move to expand production capacity beyond its plant in Oxford, England.BMW said the UK would still be the main manufacturing base for the Mini but said production of the Mini hatchback model would be split between Oxford and a factory in Born, Netherlands run by contract manufacturer VDL Nedcar.

The company expects Mini production volumes at the Dutch factory to reach a five-digit figure this year, with around 1,500 people responsible for building the new Mini.

“The Mini brand is showing substantial growth,” BMW’s head of production Harald Krueger said in a statement on Monday.

“This is why we need additional, external production capacity on top of the capacity of the Mini plant in Oxford which stands at about 260,000 units per year in the medium term.”

BMW Group is further diversifying production of the Mini as part of a growth strategy to reach a sales target of over 2 million vehicles by 2016.

BMW already has a production agreement with MSF in Graz, Austria where it built 125,559 Mini Countryman and MINI Paceman models in 2013.

Of the overall 303,177 Mini vehicles produced in 2013 only just over half, or 175,986 versions of the Mini Hatch, Convertible, Clubman, Clubvan, Roadster and Coupe models, were made in Oxford.

VDL Nedcar staff are currently receiving training on the BMW Group production system at the BMW plants in Leipzig, Oxford and Regensburg, BMW said.

Since the relaunch of the brand in 2001, nearly 2.8 million Mini vehicles have been produced, according to BMW.

The Nedcar factory was previously owned by Mitsubishi, which built the Colt subcompact and the Outlander SUV models there. After ending production at Nedcar in 2012, Mitsubishi sold the plant to local bus maker VDL Groep for 1 euro ($1.23).