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Wanted: 50 Volvo employees in China

Volvo Cars is looking to relocate about 50 employees from Sweden to China as more details emerge about Geely’s plans for the Swedish carmaker's operations in China.

Published: 12 October 2010 15:27 CEST

Wanted: 50 Volvo employees in China

The Volvo S60 (shown here) is to be built in China

Volvo’s human resources cheif Björn Sällström is currently in China looking for office space. He confirmed that Volvo’s China headquarters will be somewhere in the Jiading District of Shanghai, where one of the financiers behind Geely’s purchase of Volvo is based.

However, it remains unclear exactly where the Volvo factory will be set up.

”We’re not going to build something new, in any case,” Sällström told the TT news agency.

The first wave of 50 Volvo employees is just the start, however.

”This is what we need in the first phase. Then we can expand,” said Sällström.

Last week it was revealed that Lars Danielson, head of Volvo’s Torslanda factory outside of Gothenburg in western Sweden, will oversee production in China.

He will report to Volvo’s head of China operations, Freeman Shen, formerly deputy CEO of Geely Group.

Volvo also plans to hire around 200 local employees with varying skill sets.

”There are a lot of capable Chinese engineers. But we also want to have our own people becuase they have competence about Volvo,” said Sällström.

Plans call for Volvo’s new S60 to be built in the Chinese factory, which is expected to be operating at full capacity by 2012, according to Sällström.

Areas being scouting for Volvo’s factory include the Shanghai region, as well as Chongqing and Chengdu, both located in southwestern China.

In Chongqing, Volvo’s previous owners, US automaker Ford, cooperated with Changan Motors to manufacture the Volvo S40 as well as elongated versions of the S80.

As a result, about 15 Volvo employees are already in China and Sällström expects production at the site to continue for two to three more years.

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China derides Copenhagen democracy meet as 'political farce'

Demonstrators gathered outside the Copenhagen Democracy Summit on Tuesday. Photo: Emil Helms/Ritzau Scanpix

The Copenhagen Democracy Summit was held Monday and Tuesday in the Danish capital and organised by the Alliance of Democracies, an organisation targeted by Beijing sanctions in March and founded by former NATO boss Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

In addition to Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen and Hong Kong democracy activist Nathan Law, Danish Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod also participated in the forum by video link, which Beijing said violated “the one-China principle.”

“This summit is a political farce,” the Chinese embassy in Denmark wrote in a statement published on Tuesday. “Inviting those who advocate Taiwan and Hong Kong ‘independence’ to the meeting violates the one-China principle and interferes in China’s internal affairs,” it said.

“Some hypocritical western politicians are good at meddling in other countries’ internal affairs and creating divisions and confrontation in the name of ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’. They are bound to fail,” it added.

At the conference on Monday, Kofod said it was “deplorable” that Beijing had imposed sanctions on 10 European individuals and organisations in response to EU sanctions on Xinjiang officials over their actions against the Uyghur Muslim minority.

Like most countries, Denmark applies the one-China principle — under which Beijing bars other countries from having simultaneous diplomatic relations with Taipei — though it does maintain relations with Taiwan.

Cut off politically from the rest of China since the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, the territory is self-governing but is not recognised by
the United Nations.

Beijing considers Taiwan a rebel province that will one day return under its control, by force if necessary.

China’s sabre-rattling has increased considerably over the past year, with fighter jets and nuclear-capable bombers breaching Taiwan’s air defence zone on a near-daily basis.

“Our government is fully aware of the threats to regional security, and is actively enhancing our national defence capabilities to protect our
democracy,” Tsai told the conference in a video address on Monday. US President Joe Biden is expected to present his China strategy soon, as
calls mount for him to publicly commit to defending Taiwan militarily in the event of a Chinese attack.

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