China will double its vehicle number by 2010, with the total figure reaching 55 million, said Huang Hai, assistant minister of commerce Saturday.

Speaking at the Shanghai International Auto City Summit, the official said China will speed up the building of its auto market system in line with the country's 11th five-year program.

This will improve the environment of vehicle consumption and increase the total number of the cars, the official said.

Huang said the product structure of China's auto industry keeps improving in 2005.

There exists fierce competition among the domestic auto makers.

China's domestic auto market will see an annual demand of eight to nine million vehicles in 2010. Every thousand people will possess 40 cars.

The statistics from the Ministry of Commerce show that both the output and the sales of China's auto industry exceeded five million last year.

China has about 27 million cars today, 60 percent of which are privately owned.

(Xinhua News Agency October 16, 2005)