GM seeks 50% rise in China sales to 3 mln vehicles

General Motors Corp targets to increase sales by 50 percent to 3 million vehicles in China by 2015 despite a recent slowdown in the industry.

GM, which makes vehicles with Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp in China, sold 1 million units in the country in the first five months, half of its 2 million sales target this year, according to Kevin Wale, president and managing director of GM China.

Growth in the industry has slowed since March after vehicle sales peaked in the fourth quarter of last year. Market demand also became flat after the central government reduced incentives for car buyers.

But Wale said that despite fluctuations in the market, GM is still confident of achieving its original sales goal this year.

China is now the biggest market for GM worldwide in the first three months, and it also plays crucial role in the US car maker's global restructuring after emerging from bankruptcy.

For the first quarter of this year, GM recorded a pretax profit of US$1.7 billion globally, with a quarter contributed by GM's Chinese joint ventures, Wale said.

"GM has a strong growing momentum in China since it introduced updated vehicles last year," said John Zeng, an analyst at automotive consulting firm Global Insight.

"It has strong partnership as well as local engineering capability. The only concern is whether its global restructuring would cast some cloud over China in terms of brands and products," he added.

GM, which is the biggest international car maker in China, earlier said it will launch 25 new and upgraded models in China by 2012. Its minivan venture, SAIC-GM-Wuling, has also unveiled plans to raise annual output at its Liuzhou plant by 33 percent to 800,000 units by 2012.

Volkswagen has just announced plans to raise investment by an extra 1.6 billion euros (US$2.1 billion) in China while Nissan Motor Corp's Chinese venture is building a second plant in Guangzhou to add 240,000 vehicles annually when it is operational in 2012.