Geely Auto sees sales growth of 25% in Jan

Shanghai, February 2 (Gasgoo.com) Chinese carmaker Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd expects sales to grow by over 25 percent in January from a year earlier, company chairman Li Shufu told Reuters in an recent industry event.

The automaker, which focuses on small car models, saw daily sales exceed 1,000 units on average last month, of which its Freedom Ship became the top selling car model in the 1.3L economical car segment.

"Based on our favorable performance in the first month and backed by government support measures, we are confident to achieve 25 percent growth in car sales this year," Li said at the sidelines of the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in the Swiss ski resort of Davos.

Beijing unveiled a wide-ranging plan earlier last month to boost the auto industry, including tax breaks for purchases of cars with engine sizes below 1.6 litres and subsidies to owners of high-emission vehicles for buying low-emission new cars.

With 225,000 vehicles sold, Geely Auto was one of the few Chinese automakers who had achieved their sales targets last year. The company is targeting sales of 281,000 units this year.

To help drive sales, Geely plans to launch four all-new models and four revamped models in 2009, including FE-1/2, SL, TX4, GC and Free Cruiser, Kingkong, Vision and AT Panda, the company once said.