Geely founder Li Shufu is stepping back from the listed carmaker as it accelerates in Europe, handing the chairmanship to An Conghui and the CEO role to Gan Jiayue while remaining chairman of parent Zhejiang Geely Holding.

It coincides with a major change in Geely’s international strategy. The group no longer wants to rely mainly on exports from China. Instead, it plans to use existing European factories and partnerships to build cars locally, and Volvo’s plants, among which the one in Ghent (Belgium), are becoming a central part of that plan.

Li Shufu is the architect of the Geely empire. He founded the company in 1986, initially making refrigerator parts before moving into motorcycles and then cars, and turned it into one of China’s first major privately owned automakers.

Expansion through acquisitions and partnerships

His defining move was expansion through acquisitions and partnerships, most notably Volvo Cars in 2010, followed by investments in Lotus, Polestar, London Electric Vehicle Company, Smart, and Mercedes-Benz.

Rather than fully absorbing these brands, Li generally left them operationally independent while gradually building shared technology, platforms, and purchasing power underneath them, a strategy that has now evolved into “One Geely”.

An Conghui and Gan Jiayue are products of that expansion rather than outside appointments. An joined Geely in 1996 and rose through engineering, manufacturing, and brand management before taking charge of Zeekr and later Geely Holding.

Gan joined in 2003 and built his career in finance, procurement, supply chain, and operations management before becoming CEO of Geely Automobile Group in 2021.

Their promotion therefore marks a generational shift from founder-led Geely to a more professional management structure, but one led by executives who helped build the group alongside Li.

Producing luxury models

The reshuffle is more than a succession story. Volvo confirmed that Volvo’s European factories will start producing luxury models for other Geely-owned brands from 2028.

Geely is also targeting annual European sales of 600,000 cars within two to three years, while its long-term ambition is to generate two-thirds of Geely Auto sales outside China.

That urgency is easy to understand. Geely’s overseas sales surged 158% to 474,228 cars in the first half of 2026, prompting the company to raise its full-year export target to 920,000.

At home, however, sales have been under pressure as China’s brutal price war and weak demand squeeze manufacturers. Europe is therefore becoming both a growth market and an escape valve.

Unlike BYD, which is building new factories in Hungary and Turkey, Geely is increasingly choosing a cheaper shortcut. It has already agreed with Ford to produce electric SUVs at the Almussafes plant near Valencia from 2028. Now Volvo’s European manufacturing network is being opened to other group brands.

Volvo Car Gent in the picture

For Belgium, that puts Volvo Car Gent squarely in the picture. Only a month ago, Volvo signed an agreement with the Belgian and Flemish governments on support measures worth up to €119 million to improve the plant’s long-term competitiveness. Crucially, Volvo itself said the package could create opportunities for “contract assembly of cars of other brands”.

Ghent already has some of the hardware Geely needs. Volvo invested around €200 million to bring production of the EX30 to Belgium, including a new vehicle platform, almost 600 new or refurbished robots, a larger battery hall, and a new battery-pack line.

The EX30 belongs to the small electric Geely architecture family that also spawned closely related models from sister brands such as Zeekr and Lynk & Co.

That does not mean a Zeekr or Lynk & Co model has already been allocated to Ghent. Geely has not named factories or models. Torslanda in Sweden and the new Košice plant in Slovakia are also candidates, particularly for larger and more expensive vehicles. But Ghent has two advantages: underused capacity and a government-backed mandate to find additional production.

Historical parallel

There is also a striking historical parallel. In 2018, Volvo announced that Lynk & Co cars would be built in Ghent starting in late 2019 because they shared the CMA platform with the XC40.

That plan never materialized. Eight years later, the logic has returned, this time reinforced by EU tariffs on Chinese EV imports and Geely’s need to localize production.

The strategy could eventually reach beyond Geely Auto’s fully controlled brands. Smart remains a 50/50 joint venture between Mercedes-Benz and Geely and uses Geely-developed electric technology.

European production would therefore fit the industrial logic, although Mercedes would have to agree and no such plan has been announced. Li’s separate 9.69% stake in Mercedes-Benz Group is not affected by his departure as Geely Auto chairman.

For Ghent, the bigger question is what happens as Volvo’s own model mix increasingly moves toward newer architectures elsewhere. The EX30 gave the Belgian plant an important new lease of life, but not necessarily enough volume on its own.

Building cars for Zeekr, Lynk & Co or Geely itself could turn Ghent from a Volvo factory with spare capacity into a true multi-brand Geely production hub.

That would be quite a reversal. When Geely bought Volvo in 2010, Belgium worried about whether Chinese ownership would preserve production in Ghent. Sixteen years later, Chinese models may prove to be exactly what keeps those Belgian production lines busy.