Volvo Construction Equipment plans to invest $30 million to expand its manufacturing and assembly plant in Asheville, N.C. The company is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of construction equipment. The company opened a manufacturing facility in Asheville in 1977 and currently has 189 employees.

The expansion project for the Asheville plant is scheduled to begin in mid-2007 and will add several new production lines for tracked excavators, as well as cabs for excavators and wheel loaders. The new positions will primarily be production jobs. While individual wages will vary by job function, the anticipated average annual salary for all of the new positions will be more than $38,000 plus benefits, which is more than the Buncombe County average annual salary of $30,160, not including benefits.

Volvo Construction Equipment is a subsidiary of the Volvo Group, a publicly-held company headquartered in Sweden. The Volvo Group employs about 81,000 people worldwide at production facilities in 25 countries and had annual sales of $31 billion in 2005.

"We are delighted with the decision to bring the production of Volvo excavator and equipment cabs to the Asheville plant, a facility that utilizes the talents and expertise of the best people in the industry," said Dave Million, vice president and general manager of Volvo Construction Equipment. "We have enjoyed the support of Asheville for many years and we look forward to continuing growth and to further contributing to our community."

"Volvo has been producing construction equipment here since 1977 and it has become, with the technical expertise of the people there, one of the most advanced manufacturing facilities in our entire company," said Denny Slagle, president and CEO of Volvo Construction Equipment North America. "The Asheville facility will enable us to meet the challenges presented by our market."

The state’s Economic Investment Committee voted unanimously today to award a Job Development Investment Grant (JDIG) to the company to facilitate this expansion.

For each year in which the company meets the required performance targets, the state will provide a grant equal to 75 percent of the state personal income withholding taxes derived from the creation of new jobs. Should the company create the jobs called for under the agreement and sustain them for 12 years, the agreement could yield as much as $3 million in maximum benefits to Volvo CE.

Job Development Investment Grants are awarded only to new and expanding business and industrial projects whose benefits exceed their costs to the state and which would not be undertaken in North Carolina without the grant. Since the first grant was awarded in 2003, the program has been responsible for creating more than 14,700 jobs and $2 billion in investment to North Carolina.

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