MOSCOW (Reuters) – The new owner of Swedish truck maker Volvo AB’s former Russian plant has relaunched production after a near two-year hiatus, it said on Thursday, and plans to produce 2,000 trucks in 2024.
Volvo suspended all sales, service and production in Russia in February 2022, and said in October 2022 that further write-downs might be necessary. In 2021, Russia accounted for about 3% of its net group sales of about 372 billion Swedish crowns ($36.18 billion).
Volvo, whose plant had annual capacity of 15,000 units, was one of many Western carmakers to suspend production and ultimately abandon the Russian market over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Chinese carmakers have been seizing market share amid the Western exodus and stuttering Russian production, though Chinese car sales appear to have now peaked at around 50%, data shared with Reuters showed.
Volvo’s plant was handed to Industrial Investments Group in September and subsequently renamed Automobile Motor Company (AMO). Details of the sale were not disclosed.
Industrial Investments said it was producing a large-capacity truck with high cross-country ability under the ‘Next’ brand, but gave no further details.
Fifty trucks will be produced this year and in future the plant’s management want to expand the range of vehicles produced, the company said.
Industrial Investments Group CEO Andrei Alexandrov said the company was holding another round of talks with an unspecified foreign partner.
($1 = 10.2821 Swedish crowns)
(Reporting by Gleb Stolyarov; Writing by Alexander Marrow; Editing by Susan Fenton)
