Volvo Trucks inaugurates factory in South Africa

Volvo Trucks is today inaugurating its new factory in Durban, South Africa, which will assemble trucks intended primarily for the growing South African market, in an initial investment of approximately 42 million Swedish kronor (£ 3.06m).

At the start of the year, Volvo Trucks transferred its operations from Botswana to South Africa in order to shorten lead times and thus reduce tied capital and freight costs. The operation began with a production capacity of four trucks a day, but is expected to increase. Between January and July, 380 vehicles were assembled in the new facility.

The factory assembles Volvo FH and Volvo FM trucks powered by the new 13-litre engine, which was launched in South Africa in February 2006. The factory has a total of 60 employees, of whom 49 work in production and 11 employed with logistics and administration.

Volvo Trucks operates its own production factories as well as jointly-owned assembly plants in a variety of locations around the world. The largest wholly-owned factories are in Göteborg and Umeå in Sweden, Ghent (Belgium), Virginia (USA), and Curitiba (Brazil). Smaller plants are located in Bangalore (India) and Brisbane (Australia) with a 50% share in a joint manufacturing plant in Jinan (China).