China's Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Corp (BAIC), rival Geely, and at least one Western industrial group remain interested in Ford Motor Co's Volvo car unit, a person close to the situation said on Tuesday.

Geely, which has already visited Volvo in Sweden, plans to make a fresh visit soon, the person added. A second person close to the situation said Geely representatives were likely to visit this week.

Ford is also hopeful that a consortium of Scandinavian investors may come together to lodge a proposal, the first person said.

John Gardiner, a spokesman for Ford Europe, declined to comment in detail on the sale process. But he said: We're still in discussion with a number of parties concerning the future of Volvo. No final decision has been made at this stage and the process will take some time to unfold.

Ford put the money-losing Volvo cars unit up for sale in December, as it looked to cut costs and raise cash amid industrywide record-low vehicle sales. Bankers say the complexity of disentangling Volvo cars from its parent means the process is likely to take a long time.

On May 7, the Hong Kong-listed Geely Automobile Holdings <0175.HK> said it had not submitted, and had no plans to submit, any bid concerning a takeover of Volvo.

However, it is not clear whether that denial would rule out a bid from mainland-based parent company Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, whose owner, Li Shu Fu, is chairman of both firms.

Earlier this month a BAIC spokesman said he was not briefed on the company's interest in any foreign auto brands, after the Wall Street Journal said it was interested in Volvo and BAIC executives were set to visit Volvo headquarters in Gothenburg.

BAIC and Geely could not immediately be reached by Reuters for comment.

(Reporting by Quentin Webb; Additional reporting by Sven Nordenstam in Stockholm; Editing by Douwe Miedema and Richard Chang)

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