BERLIN (AFP) - Swedish automaker Volvo, owned by China's Zhejiang Geely, will hire 10,000 new staff in the coming years, most of them in China, its chief executive said in an interview to be published Monday.

"We will increase our staff to between 33,000 and 35,000 by 2020," Stefan Jacoby told Automotive News Europe magazine.

The company currently employs around 24,000 people worldwide -- around 16,000 in Sweden, 5,000 in Belgium and 1,000 in China as well as 2,000 in other countries.

Jacoby said Volvo aimed to sell 800,000 vehicles per year by 2020, one-quarter of them in China, now the world's biggest auto market.

In 2010, Volvo sold about 374,000 vehicles worldwide, with sales rising by 29 percent in northern Europe and 36 percent in China.

Geely bought Volvo from Ford last year.