Volvo plans construction equipment manufacturing base in India

Kolkata, Nov 16 (UNI) Volvo India is planning to set up a manufacturing base for construction equipment in its Bangalore plant in the next 3-4 years.

"We are planning to set up a manufacturing base in India. It's in the drawing board. In the next 3-4 years we will have a set up here," Volvo's vice-president-construction equipment Mrityunjaya Singh told reporters here.

Volvo India has enough space at its Bangalore plant spread over 120 acres, one-third of which is currently used, Mr Singh said.

Presently, Volvo imports its products from Korea, Canada and Sweden.

Mr Singh was in the city to launch the new EC700B LC Crawler Excavator in the eastern region.

He said the company is targetting 25 per cent growth in business in 2006 over the previous year.

"We hope the government will continue giving stress on infrastructure development and mining projects and the construction equipment segment is set to show good growth," he said.

The excavators for the company were the largest selling segment with 12 per cent market share and the company is looking at 20 per cent share in this segment in the near future, he said.

Volvo presently enjoys 40 per cent market share in the loaders segment, 33 per cent market share in the motor graders segment and 100 per cent market share in the trucks segment, the executive said.

The Construction equipment segment contributes US$ 5 billion revenue to the overall US$ 30 billion group turnover of Swedish major Volvo.

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