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China to be Volvo’s ‘second home market’

China may be the largest market for Volvo Cars by the end of 2011, as the company looks to increase sales in China six-fold by 2015, according to the head of Volvo’s China operations.

Published: 12 January 2011 07:58 CET

China to be Volvo's 'second home market'

“I would say (China will be the No. 1 market) in the next couple of years — hopefully one year,” Volvo Car China chairman Freeman Shen told the Reuters news agency from the Detroit auto show.

Last week, Volvo announced that global sales grew by 11.2 percent in 2010, due in part to a 36.2 percent increase in sales in the Chinese market.

However, overall sales in Volvo’s home market of Sweden remained about twice as high as sales in China.

With Geely CEO Li Shufu taking over as Volvo’s chairman in July and Geely’s takeover of the Swedish brand from US-based Ford Motor Company in August, China is seen as an increasingly important part of Volvo’s future success.

“We are looking at a strategy of making China a second home market. Today we mainly only have one home market, in Sweden,” Shen told Reuters.

Speaking in December, Volvo Cars CEO Stefan Jacoby said Volvo will soon announce plans regarding the opening of its first plant in China, adding that he expected Volvo cars to start rolling off the assembly line in China within two 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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