Swedish automobile major Volvo plans to debut in the fast-growing Indian passenger car market. The company expects to launch its cars in the Indian market by mid-2007, according to Maud Olofsson, deputy prime minister and minister for enterprise and energy, Sweden.
Talking to media persons after addressing the India-Sweden Business Forum organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry, Olofsson said Volvo was likely to launch its cars initially in three cities.
While the company had decided on two locations -- Delhi and Mumbai -- the third location will be decided soon. The third location is likely to be Bangalore. While details of the debuting models were not available, the company had last year said that it would begin selling its XC90 and S80 models in India by the end of 2006 or early 2007.
Volvo will also invest Rs 70 crore to expand the capacity of its bus-building unit at Bidadi in Bangalore. This expansion is expected to create additional job opportunities for about 700 people.
Volvo is the market leader in India for luxury, air-conditioned express coaches. The company has also entered the city bus market in India by offering air-conditioned, low-floor buses. The bus division accounts for about 25 per cent of the total revenues of Volvo's operations in India.
Earlier, at the India-Sweden Business Forum, Olofsson said the bilateral trade between the two countries stood at $2 billion last year, a growth of 41 per cent over the previous year. Sweden was keen on growing cooperation with India in the areas of ICT, biotech, automobiles, environment technology and education.
Olofsson was optimistic that it was possible to meet various global environmental challenges such as climate change while achieving economic growth.
"Swedish energy consumption is going down while at the same time we have a good yearly increase in GNP growth. We have also set a very ambitious target for the future: to reach a 30 per cent reduction in greenhouse emissions by 2020," she added.
