Geely Holding Group, China's top privately owned carmaker, aims to nearly triple its overseas sales this year from 2006, despite obstacles from foreign countries and the Chinese government's stricter rules on car exports.

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The parent of Hong Kong-listed Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd yesterday said it expects to export 33,000 cars in 2007, up from 12,000 last year. The 2006 figure was up from 7,000 units in 2005.

The independent carmaker, based in coastal Zhejiang Province, is one of China's leading car exporters as well as Chery Automobile Co in Anhui Province.

However, Geely's planned car production in Malaysia is still suspended due to a row over sales ratios in the Southeast Asian nation, the firm's spokesman Wang Ziliang said yesterday.

According to a deal clinched in 2005, Geely planned to assemble its cars in Malaysia last year with an initial capacity of 30,000 units annually. But it was ordered to sell 80 percent of the made-in-Malaysia cars out of the country, which Geely could not accept.

"I'm afraid that it will take us some time to solve the issue," Wang told China Daily.

He said Geely is preparing new models which will meet standards in the United States in an effort to foray into the world's biggest car market in 2008.

The company's main overseas markets are currently in the Middle East, Southeast Asia and East Europe.

Asked whether China's tightened rules on car exports published last week will affect Geely's overseas sales, Wang said: "It will not have a negative impact on us."

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