Scania to Increase Truck Dealerships in Iraq As Demand Grows

11 June 2010 - Bloomberg

Scania AB, the Swedish truckmaker controlled by Volkswagen AG, last week opened its second dealership in Iraq and aims to complete another one yet this year as the country’s reconstruction spurs demand.

“The needs are there,” Klas Dahlberg, sales chief for the region, said in a telephone interview yesterday. “We know that, and they know that, but the funds must be allocated in the different agencies.”

Iraq’s government has ordered 500 Scania trucks, which are being assembled locally by the Iraqi state automotive company. Scania has also delivered about 30 trucks to private buyers since reentering the country at the end of last year.

Iraq was once one of Scania’s biggest markets, with deliveries peaking at 3,900 trucks in 1981. Sales were non- existent during the war that began in March 2003. The U.S. Army took over the truckmaker’s Baghdad service center, renaming it Camp Scania.

Scania should eventually reach the volumes it had in Iraq in the 1980’s, Dahlberg said, adding it’s “impossible to say when that will happen.”

The service and dealer center that opened last week is in northern Iraq in Erbil, while the third one planned for 2010 would be located in Basra in the south. The first one is in Baghdad.