Jaguar Land Rover (TK Kurikawa/Bigstock.com)

UK-based car maker Jaguar Land Rover has announced it will be building a new plant in Slovakia, as part of an investment worth up to £1bn.

It will be one of the largest foreign investments in the central European country.

The firm said it will build the factory in Nitra, where it aims to produce up to 300,000 cars a year. JLR has been expanding its line-up in recent years and needs additional manufacturing capacity.

Construction of the site will begin next year and will initially create up to 2,800 jobs in the area.

The firm, which is owned by Tata Motors Ltd of India, already has a plant in China and has almost completed another in Brazil.

These new factories will operate alongside their British counterparts in Halewood, Castle Bromwich and Solihull, which build vehicles such as the Jaguar XE saloon and the Range Rover Evoque.

A number of other car makers already build vehicles in Slovakia, including Peugeot and Volkswagen.

According to one Reuters trade union source, JLR was considering four central European nations for the plant site.

While JLR has enjoyed great success since being taken over by Tata in 2008, it has been hit in recent months by a drop in Chinese sales, coupled with the blast in China's Tianjin port which destroyed thousands of its vehicles.

In 2016 Jaguar will launch its first SUV, the F-Pace, while Range Rover will begin selling a convertible version of its popular Evoque model.