PARIS, July 19 (Reuters) – Volvo Cars (IPO-VOLVO.ST) is shifting XC60 SUV production for the U.S. market to Europe from China to avoid Washington’s new tariffs on Chinese imports, the Swedish carmaker said.
Volvo, owned by China’s Geely, currently builds the compact XC60 in Sweden for European customers and in China for other markets including the United States.
“We will of course reshuffle here and take XC60s for the U.S. … from our factory in Europe, and let China produce for other markets,” Chief Executive Hakan Samuelsson told Reuters on Thursday, adding that the shift had already begun.
Chinese XC60 production previously shipped to the United States would be reallocated to other markets, with some imported back to Europe, he said. “That’s the sort of fine-tuning we can do within our production process.” (Reporting by Laurence Frost; Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta)