Volvo finally became a Chinese car

In Gothenborg, an agreement was signed between the American Ford Motor and the Chinese Geely on the sale of a Swedish manufacturer of Volvo cars.

According to Itiar-TASS, the ceremony was held in the presence of the Vice-Chairman of the PRC Xi Jinping and the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Industry of Sweden Mod Ulofsson. The transaction amount amounted to $ 1.8 billion (in 1999, Ford acquired a Swedish automaker for 6.5 billion).

Volvo headquarters remains in Gothenburg. "We are glad that we have concluded a Ford agreement with the company that allows us to maintain and strengthen the legacy of the famous Volvo brand," said the head of Geely Lee Shuuf.

The Chinese company intends to maintain the production of Volvo cars in Sweden and Belgium, and also studies the possibility of assembling them at new factories in China. In total, 22 thousand people work in the world on Volvo, of which 16 thousand are in the kingdom itself.

The trade unions gave the final consent to the deal only on Saturday, after meeting with Lee Shuf, who spoke about the plans of the new leadership. Meanwhile, suppliers of the Swedish company fear that their technical solutions will be illegally copied in China. "This can lead to the fact that Volvo will not receive offers from large subcontractors for new equipment," said the head of the association of Suven -Oka Bergli suppliers.

There are advantages: for Volvo, a new market for cars - Chinese is more widely opened. The PRC last year reached the first place in the world in terms of domestic sales of cars, overtaking the United States.