Caterpillar will build a $200 million factory near Athens, Georgia, that will employ about 1,400 people and manufacture construction equipment currently produced in Sagami, Japan.

A Caterpillar spokesman said the Peoria, Illinois-based company reviewed more than 100 communities before selecting this site..

The new one-million-square-foot plant, due to begin production in late 2013, will make small bulldozers and excavators. About 40 percent of the output will be exported, the Caterpillar spokesman says. The Sagami plant, which currently makes this line of machinery, will be turned into a parts plant.

Aside from workers hired for the plant, Caterpillar estimated that the project will create another 2,800 jobs among suppliers and other firms providing support services.