Volvo, owned by China’s Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, will invest $708 million to build a second plant in China, the world’s biggest auto market, the environment ministry in Beijing said.

The automaker, which was bought by Geely last year, will pour 4.58 billion yuan into the plant in northeastern Daqing, with operations scheduled to begin in 2013, the ministry said in a statement.

The plant will produce 113K sedans, XC60 sport utility vehicles and an unspecified model of multi-purpose vehicle with total annual capacity of 80,000 units by 2015, according to the statement.

The project will receive the ministry’s approval following a one-week notice period that ended yesterday. Geely, parent of Hong Kong-listed Geely Automobile Holdings, bought Sweden-based Volvo from Ford in August for $1.5 billion (€1.2 billion at the time).

It unveiled a plan in February to turn China, which overtook the United States as the world’s largest auto market in 2009, into a major manufacturing base for Volvo by investing $11 billion over the next five years.

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