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Volvo’s owner: We might make cars in Sweden

Chinese carmaker Geely is considering making and selling cars in Western Europe, a Swedish business daily quoted the company's director as saying on Tuesday.

Volvo's owner: We might make cars in Sweden
A worker welds the interior of a car at a Geely factory in Ningbo, China. Photo: Eugene Hoshiko/AP

“European production is part of our strategy,” Geely Auto's managing director Conghui An told Dagens Industri.

An was in Gothenburg, Sweden's second-biggest city and auto industry hub, to discuss the possibility of setting up Geely's European head office near
that of Volvo Cars, which it bought from Ford in 2010.

Sweden is however not the only country the company is considering, and no date has been set for when it could begin production in Europe, An said.

Geely already has a foot in Britain, where it bought the London Taxi Company in 2012, the maker of London's famed black cabs.

And the company already sells Geely models in Eastern Europe — in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Azerbaijan — and in Turkey.

The Chinese brand sold as many cars as Volvo in 2015 — almost 510,000, compared to 503,000 for the Swedish brand, primarily in China where it is the 10th biggest Chinese carmaker with a 2.3 percent market share.