GM Denies Buick Selling Rumors, Expects Stronger China Sales

General Motors' Asia-Pacific chief, Nick Reilly yesterday denied rumors claiming that the American car giant is interested in selling the Buick unit to SAIC, confirming that this particular brand is going to remain a core product for the company. Furthermore, GM China CEO Kevin Wale revealed the company's expectations when it comes to the Chinese market, saying that General Motors expects to record a growth of 5 to 10 percent this year.

Reilly says sales reached the lowest possible level in certain countries around the world, but the market is finally showing the first signs of recovery, especially in South Korean. However, sales remain weak in Japan and "probably will stay that way", as he was quoted as saying by Autonews at the Shanghai auto show.

As part of its enthusiastic plans to perform better in China, General Motors aims to raise its stake in the local joint venture SAIC-GM-Wuling. The American automaker currently owns 34 percent of the alliance, according to Autonews.

"If there's an opportunity to increase it a bit, we probably would," he said.

General Motors earlier this month said that it expects to sell more than 2 million units by 2013, which means the company plans to get at least double figures by this deadline. GM's sales in the first three months grew 16.8 percent to 363,701 units, according to figures provided by Shanghai Securities News. Furthermore, March deliveries increased by 24.6 percent compared to the same month of the year before.

Nationwide, a total of 772,400 cars were sold in March, an increase by 27.7 percent from February when Chinese purchased 607,300 passenger cars, according to figures provided by China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.