Beijing - German auto giant Volkswagen announced new monthly and three-quarterly sales records in China on Monday, projecting annual growth of 30 per cent in its biggest global market.

Volkswagen Group China said 1,061,964 vehicles were delivered to mainland and Hong Kong customers from January to September, an increase of 37 per cent year-on-year.

Sales for the first nine months of this year have already exceeded full-year sales for last year, with sales in September hitting a new monthly record of nearly 150,000, the company said.

"As a locomotive of the world economy, China keeps growing at a high rate," Winfried Vahland, president of Volkswagen Group China, said in a statement.

"China's passenger cars experienced an unexpectedly high growth and all our locally produced brands - Volkswagen, Audi and Skoda - have registered remarkable sales records month by month," Vahland said.

"We surpassed the 1,000,000 record sales landmark of last year already in middle of September," he said. "Based on our current figures we expect for the whole year a solid double-digit growth of more than 30 per cent for the group."

Volkswagen recently said it aimed to unveil at least four new or updated models annually in China under its "Strategy 2018" programme, focussing on models tailored to Chinese buyers.

Its first new Golf models were scheduled for delivery in China within the next week, Vahland said.

In an earlier statement, he said China would "definitely become the biggest car market in the world in 2009 and the biggest market for Volkswagen."

The Chinese government recently forecast that vehicle sales were expected to reach 12 million in this year, including about 10 million passenger cars.

But some analysts warned that aggressive expansion plans by foreign and Chinese car makers were likely to lead to a surplus of passenger cars in China in the next few years. (dpa)