Shipments of Volvo trucks rose 62 percent last month.

• Scania hires 500 new staff to speed up production

Volvo Group, the world's second-biggest maker of heavy vehicles, Wednesday said that total deliveries from its truck operations in July amounted to 14,377 vehicles. This was an increase of 62 percent compared with the year-earlier period.

Shares in the company rose 1.70 percent in morning trading.

Shipments rose 61 percent in Europe while they were up 52 percent in North America. In Asia shipments rose 68 percent.

Volvo sells trucks under the Renault, Mack, UD Trucks and Eicher brands as well as its own name.

The heavy truck sector suffered very badly in the global economic slump, with orders plummeting. During the second quarter demand rose sharply for Volvo and its competitors. Germany's Daimler and Sweden's Volvo, which dominate the market with MAN, recently reported better-than-expected earnings as they too benefited from the recovery.

Scania, Sweden’s second biggest truckmaker, said the previous day that it's recruiting 500 new employees at its European production units to deal with the increased production rate planned for the fourth quarter of 2010.