MONTGOMERY, Ala. — A new study conducted by Auburn University-Montgomery Professor M. Keivan Deravi indicates that the economic impact of Hyundai’s Montgomery manufacturing center is upward of $4.8 billion.

The study stated that the company’s 2014 earnings represented 2 percent of the state’s Real Gross Domestic Product.

The company’s impact on the Yellowhammer State has grown significantly over the past five years. In 2010 a study commissioned by the same group found that the South Korean car company’s impact was $3.8 billion.

“Hyundai has dramatically improved the manufacturing sector of central Alabama’s economy,” Professor Deravi said in a press release. “Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama has contributed to a 15.2 percent growth rate in manufacturing employment in the Montgomery Metro Area since the plant broke ground in 2002.”

This year, Hyundai celebrated its tenth year of business in Alabama and over that period, South Korea has become one of Alabama’s closest trade partners.

In the past decade, Hyundai’s investment in the facility has grown to $1.8 billion, with the automaker investing $40 million in the plant last year, according to Alabama Department of Commerce data. In 2014, the facility produced 398,851 Sonata and Elantra sedans, the automaker’s best-selling U.S. models, along with 706,378 engines.

Alabama set a new state record in 2014, exporting nearly 1 million automobiles. An increased global demand for cars, and Alabama’s ever increasing capacity to build high quality vehicles mean that the state’s exports will likely continue growing at a fast clip.