Volvo would make India, along with China, the Asian sourcing hub in the bus manufacturing segment for domestic and global markets, a top company executive said on Monday.
Volvo Bus Corporation President Hakan Karlsson also said that the company was looking at increasing Volvo bus exports from India from the current 10 per cent to 20-25 per cent in the "short-term".
While engines would continue to be sourced from China, the company is looking to source the "rest of the components" from India, which has been identified as a "prioritised market" said Karlsson, who also spoke highly of Indian auto component firms.
Volvo produced 403 inter city/luxury coach buses in India in the calendar year 2005, of which it exported 40 buses to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, officials said.
Karlsson and Akash Passey (head and vice-president), Volvo Buses, South Asia, said that the company was now exploring markets in Mauritius and Pakistan as also other parts of Asia and the Middle-East.
Karlsson said the company's aim was to grow by an annual 25 per cent in volume terms in the bus segment and sell 1,000 units a year in the next few years in India.
He said for the bus segment, the company currently sources 40 per cent of the components in India itself; the ambition is to increase it to 60 per cent.
