Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, owner of Volvo Cars and shareholder of Daimler, said it has all the production facilities ready around the world to take on local and international competitors in the mid-to-high end passenger vehicle market. The company’s listed unit Geely Automobile Holdings, China’s largest non-state-owned carmaker, more than doubled its 2017 net profit to CNY10.63 billion, beating its own forecast, while revenue jumped 73% to CNY92.76 billion.

“Our overseas strategy is starting to see some fundamental changes as we move from simple trading and assembling of semi-knock-down (SKD) kits towards the localization of production,” said the parent company’s President An Conghui, during a press conference. “Through localization, we can bring our products and technology overseas and reap tremendous cost advantages.” Zhejiang Geely’s recently commissioned factory in Belarus will target the vast Russian market, and it will transfer products and technology to Malaysia’s struggling state-backed car maker Proton so that the Chinese firm “can quickly penetrate the Southeast Asian market,” he said.

The biggest globalization move this year will be the launch of its “Lynk & Co” brand of sedans and “crossovers” that combine features of passenger cars with those of sport utility vehicles (SUVs). They are made by Lynk & Co, a recently formed joint venture in which listed Geely Auto has a 50% stake, and the remainder split between the parent and the parent’s wholly-owned Swedish unit Volvo Cars. Geely Auto contributed CNY3.75 billion of capital toward the venture. “Lynk & Co cars will target the 43% share of the China market currently occupied by the likes of Toyota, Honda and Volkswagen, while Volvo will focus on the luxury end of the market,” An said, adding that Lynk will also penetrate the European market this year, the South China Morning Post reports. Geely Automobile Holdings has set a target to raise sales by 26.4% to 1.58 million units – including 150,000 Lynk cars – after a 63% jump last year.

Geely aims to sell 2 million vehicles by 2020, with new energy vehicle (NEV) sales hitting 1.8 million units. The NEV sales target will be divided into hybrid vehicles that will account for 65% of the total sales by 2020 and electric vehicles that are set to take up 35%. A total of 777,000 new energy vehicles were sold in the Chinese market last year, up 53.3% year-on-year, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM).