US auto giant General Motors said Monday its sales in China hit a record high in 2011, despite a broader slowdown in the world's largest vehicle market.

GM and its joint ventures in China sold around 2.55 million units last year, up more than 8.0 percent from the previous record of 2.35 million in 2010, the company said in a statement.

"GM stayed ahead of the competition despite a slowdown in the growth of industry demand," Kevin Wale, president of GM China Group, said in the statement.

In December alone, GM's sales in China rose 9.8 percent annually to 196,797 units.

China, which overtook the United States to become the world's top auto market in 2009, has become increasingly important for global players.

Another major US auto maker, Ford Motor Co, also said Monday that its sales in China broke the half-million mark in 2011.

Ford's sales rose seven percent annually to 519,390 units, including both passenger cars and commercial vehicles, it said in a statement.

The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, which tracks auto sales and production in the country, has yet to release figures for all of 2011.

However, association officials have forecast that annual growth for the whole of 2011 will be just five percent, down from an earlier forecast of 10-15 percent.

Sales soared more than 32 percent in 2010 but have since lost some steam amid a slowdown in economic growth and after China phased out incentives, including tax breaks for small-engine vehicles.

China has moved to protect its domestic auto industry in recent weeks, slapping import tariffs on some US passenger cars and sports utility vehicles, and saying it would "withdraw support" for foreign investment in the sector.

But the lure of the massive market remains.

Germany's Volkswagen Group said last week that it would build a new plant in the eastern city of Ningbo capable of producing 300,000 vehicles annually once the facility is completed by 2014.

China auto duties not a problem for GM: official
Detroit, Michigan (AFP) Jan 9, 2012 - China's punitive anti-dumping duties imposed on luxury cars from abroad have had little impact on General Motors' business there, a top GM executive said Monday.

Although three of GM's top models are subject to the duties, only a small volume is affected, said Tim Lee, GM's head of Asia-Pacific operations.

"It's a miniscule volume for us in China," he told reporters at the Detroit auto show.

He put the potential impact at less than 0.5 percent of the total volume of sales of GM's Cadillac Escalade, Cadillac CTS and Buick Enclave, the three cars affected by the duties.

China declared the duties, which also hit imports from Chrysler, BMW, Mercedes-Benz US International, American Honda Motor and Ford Motor, in December, in what was seen as a tit-for-tat action after Washington moved to have China investigated for dumping solar panels into the United States.

Lee said China had actually quietly set the duties on the US-made cars a year earlier, but then suspended it.

"They were sort of held as a sword of Damocles over our head" and enacted apparently in response to the US move on Chinese-made solar panels.

"There are trade issues between China and the United States that impacted that particular decision," he said.

But it hardly affects the business of GM in China, where the company manufactured and sold around 2.55 million units last year, up more than 8.0 percent from 2010.

"We basically sell what we build in China in China," Lee said.

Lee said the company was still talking with the government over how the duties would be applied. He said the government in fact had originally invited GM to sell the Enclave in the country, and so GM is arguing that that particular model should not be affected by the duties.

But, he said, "on the grand scale of the company of General Motors, this is not a big issue."