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Chennai Feb. 1 Volvo cars would hit the Indian market in the second half of this year. The Swedish automobile major plans to have three distributors — one each in Mumbai and Delhi, while the third is yet to be decided, according to Ms Maud Olofsson, Swedish Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Enterprise and Energy.

Volvo would also invest Rs 70 crore in a bus building facility in Bangalore and it would provide job opportunities for around 700 people, she told presspersons here today.

According to Ms Olofsson, other than Volvo, Swedish companies such as SKF, ABB and Ericsson have a large presence in India. Bilateral trade relations between India and Sweden in 2006 touched $2 billion, 40 per cent higher than in 2005.

Earlier, in her keynote address at the India-Sweden Business Forum, Ms Olofsson said India and Sweden could jointly work in areas such as information, communication and technology, biotechnology and environment. There is an urgent need to address the issue of climate change, and both countries could work on this as well. In his inaugural address, Mr Dayanidhi Maran, Union Minister for Communications and IT, said that going by the present trend, the target of 250-million mobile subscribers by 2007-end would be achieved by the middle of this year.

The Ministry set a target of 500 million mobile subscribers and 10 million broadband customers by 2010, he said.

Mr R. Seshasayee, President, Confederation of Indian Industry, said it was happy news that Sony Ericsson would was to manufacture mobile phones from Sriperumbudur near Chennai. He noted that India was transforming itself from a provider of services to a manufacturing base. While the services sector fuels the country's growth, it is manufacturing and agriculture that can sustain the growth.

On Tata Steel winning the Corus bid, Mr Seshasayee said: "It really set a watermark. It has unleashed a new competitive entrepreneurship in India. It is a case of can-do and will to go and succeed abroad. More importantly, it is not the enterprise, but it is about an enterprise backed by good value."

According to Mr Seshasayee, who is also the Managing Director of Ashok Leyland, another happy news was that the Reserve Bank of India hasprovided a prognosis of the country's growth rate at 8.5 to 9 per cent from the earlier projection of 8 per cent. This is clearly a time for celebration. This is also good news for global trade and investment partners who depend on Indian talent, he said.

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