Auto sales in the first six months rose 23.3 percent from a year ago to 4.4 million units, while production rose 22.4 percent to 4.5 million, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said in a report posted on its Web site.

The brief report gave no further details.

Local forecasts put sales and output for the full year at a record 8.5 million, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. It said Chinese auto factories produced 3.2 million passenger cars and 1.3 million commercial vehicles in January-June.

The 10 biggest manufacturers sold 3.6 million vehicles, taking an 83 percent market share, the report said.

China became the world's No. 2 auto market in 2006, surpassing Japan, with total sales of 7.2 million vehicles _ including trucks and buses _ and production of 7.3 million. Passenger car sales totaled 3.8 million units last year.

Last year, there were 16.5 million autos sold in the US and 5.7 million in Japan.