Home- grown Geely, which means “lucky” in Chinese, is hungry for modern and innovative technologies that can upgrade its cars to tap the growing affluent auto market in china, the biggest in the world. Market watchers have been hopeful that Geely , which used to make china’s cheapest cars, would reap benefits in better brand recognition and new technology.

Investors have bid up Geely’s stock more than four-fold this year, sending it to a record high.

Ford Motor named Zhejiang Geely Holding Group as a preferred bidder for its loss- making Swedish unit Volvo Car Corp late on Wednesday, bringing the long – running sale process closer to a conclusion. “That for sure will shorten the technology development time for Geely,” said Vivien Chan, auto analyst with Sino Pac Securities Corp. “If the parent company buys Volvo, it will fine tune its production line before it will be injected into the listed firm, and it probably will take a few years,” She added.