Nissan’s Sunderland plant will begin shipping its new Qashqai crossover model back to Japan today.

It is the first time a Nissan product from the UK has been exported to Japan in over 10 years.

The Qashqai, re-named Dualis for the Japanese market, went into production at Sunderland in December last year, and already more than 20,000 have rolled off the line.

The last Sunderland-built car to be exported to Japan was the 1996 model Primera.