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7 2.11 to 2.16.2019 of PBT models above 16 tons this year, to about 65 thousand units. Most part of the additional investment also has the truck operation as destination: “It will be applied in the development of new models, a share of it is going to Volvo Bus and another to CE [construction equipment]. In the factories, for the time being, no new investments are needed”. The Volvo Group’s Latin America division closed last year at a profit. In Brazil alone, truck sales increased 79% to 10 thousand 642 units. The results were also good in Peru, with 1 thousand 215 trucks delivered in Chile, 1 thousand 60 units sold, and in Argentina, which, despite the decline due to the economic crisis, closed the year with 1 thousand 122 trucks traded. But the Brazilian market went ever further: if in 2017 28% of Curitiba’s production was in the Brazilian market, that share rose to 55% last year: “At the beginning of last year we projected a 30% increase in sales. They grew 79%, which generated a whole adaptation process in the productive chain. It was well managed and we were able to deliver that volume, which left us in second position in the market above 16 tons”. Heavy bus sales increased 114% in Brazil, to three hundred units. 908 chassis were sold in the region, a stable volume compared to 2017. Fabiano Todeschini, president of Volvo Buses for Latin America, estimates a new growth of 20% in the Brazilian market in 2019. “And Transantiago, in Chile, has positive prospects for new demands”. This year, Volvo completes 40 years since the first bus chassis production in Curitiba. The trucks entered the lines in 1980, one year later.

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