Swedish-Chinese Volvo still trades with Russia. What the car brand is after is not covered by sanctions from the West.
Swedish-Chinese Volvo Cars still trades with Russia.
A series of sanctions against Russia have not affected trade in the mineral mica, which is used, among other things, in batteries for electric cars.
And that loophole is exploited by Swedish-Chinese Volvo Cars. Aftonbladet writes that.
In a statement to the media, however, Volvo Car's press spokesman Magnus Holst denies that the brand gets mica from mining in Madagascar, where the supplier Glory Mica uses quarry labor.
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On the other hand, Glory Mica would like to say that they send mica to Volvo via Russia. At the same time, the supplier says that 'one is fully aware of the problems between the EU and Russia' and 'that it will probably not get better in the near future.
Volvo Cars then also denies that there is any problem whatsoever in doing business with the Russians. Still, the car brand claims it is looking around for a 'second release'.
– There is no ban that means we cannot or must not buy mica from Russia, but when the war broke out, together with our supplier we immediately started a project to find a replacement for mica from Russia, says Magnus Holst.
It is not unknown that companies around the world use temporary labor when it comes to getting hold of important components for car batteries. Especially for electric cars.
In December last year, Aftonbladet was able to tell that a Tesla supplier has close connections to companies that use temporary work.
And the English newspaper The Guardian could already tell in 2019 that up to 11,000 children worked in Madagascar's mines. Here they extracted and continue to extract minerals. Read more about it here .
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