Doing Business in China

It was reported yesterday that in the first half of 2009,Ford Motor's sales in China surged 14 percent.General Motors Corp. said its China sales soared 38 percent int the first half from a year earlier on strong demand for minivans and other small vehicles.

Auto makers were impacted greatly by the global recession.The demand is lackluster in North America and other major markets.Now they are counting on China's market,China had provided great stimulus programs.

Ford sales in China totaled 197,212 vehicles from January to June, the Dearborn, Michigan-based automaker said Monday. It said passenger car sales climbed 20 percent and were up 55 percent from a year earlier in June alone.

China's passenger car sales shot up 46.8 percent in May from a year earlier, the latest month for which data have been reported, according to the state-sanctioned China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.

For the first five months of the year, sales climbed 21 percent from the same period of 2008, the group said.By contrast, U.S. sales in June plunged 28 percent from a year earlier to 859,847 vehicles, according to research firm Autodata Corp.

Analysts expect China's auto sales to top 10 million vehicles this year, and an industry group, the China Passenger Car Association, is forecasting sales in excess of 11 million units.