Volvo chooses Malaysia as Asean manufacturing hub

St enstrom (right) says 40% of the Volvo car parts for SMA’s assembly operations in Shah Alam are sourced locally while the balance are imported, mostly from Europe.

CARMAKER Volvo which operates under the company named Swedish Motor Assemblies Sdn Bhd (SMA) locally has chosen to operate out of Malaysia instead and had recently consolidated its Asean operations to a single location here.

SMA’s managing director David Stenstrom tells StarBizWeek in an interview recently that Volvo, which had previously operated out of both Malaysia and Thailand, is now focused on scaling up assembly production locally instead and today exports Volvo cars to Thailand.