VW China confident of selling 1 mln vehicles in 2008

Shanghai, September 19, 2008 -(Gasgoo.com) German auto giant Volkswagen is well on the way to selling one million vehicles this year in China, said an executive of VW China on Tuesday when the company presented Volkswagen and Skoda cars as gifts to 15 Chinese Olympic champions, reported xinhuanet.com yesterday.

Building on its successful Olympic sponsorship and remarkable first half sales growth in China, Volkswagen Group (China) remains confident that the company will reach its goal of selling one million vehicles in China in 2008. As an automotive partner of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, Volkswagen AG provided more than 5,000 energy-efficient, eco-friendly vehicles for the global event, including a "green fleet" of 30 vehicles.

Volkswagen AG said the company's sales in China rose 23.3% year-on-year to 531,612 units in the first half of this year. Sales of Volkswagen-branded vehicles were up 15.7% to 439,218, including 5,797 imported units, and sales of Audi-branded vehicles grew 23.1 pct to 60,509 units, including 6,721 imports. Volkswagen is set to sell more cars in China than in its home market of Germany in 2008.

Since the beginning of this year, VW China has worked out monthly output and sales plans for its two companies - Shanghai VW and FAW VW in a bid to achieve VW's annual China sales of one million vehicles this year. This ambitious goal is largely driven by the German carmaker's Olympic Plan in China, a project initiated in 2005.

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