Volvo has announced a new manufacturing strategy in China including the move of production for the new S90 from Europe.

Volvo’s luxury S90 Excellence has been developed for the Chinese market

The range-topping model, based on Volvo’s Scalable Product Architecture (SPA), will be built at the carmaker’s plant in Daqing, Heilongjiang province, in northern China.

In addition, existing and future 60 series medium-sized SPA-based cars will be built at its plant in Chengdu, Szechuan province, in Western China, while its planned 40 series smaller cars, based on its Compact Modular Architecture (CMA), will be made at a plant that is currently being built in Luqiao, 350 km south of Shanghai.

“With three plants – and the designation of one car line for each plant – Volvo creates an efficient production structure ensuring future capacity for growth,” said Håkan Samuelsson, president and chief executive.

The carmaker currently operates two plants in Europe, in Sweden and Belgium. The Sweden plant in Gothenburg will continue to make 90 series and 60 series SPA cars, while its plant in Ghent, Belgium, will in future be a CMA-only production facility making new 40 series cars.

Volvo is also building a new plant in South Carolina in the US that will also make SPA-based vehicles for domestic US consumption and for export.

The news comes as Volvo unveils a new China-built version of its S90 saloon and a bespoke luxury model called S90 Excellence, both of which will debut at the 2016 Guangzhou Motor Show and are targeted at the Chinese market.