German auto-maker to reach record production in 2015: industry group

German car-makers were expected to produce more than 15 million cars for the first time in 2015, said an industry group on Tuesday, attributing the main momentum to demands from China and the United States markets.

Next year, 15.25 million passenger cars bearing German brands would be manufactured, forecasted German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA). Only around a third of them, or 5.65 million units, would be produced in German territory, the rest would be made in foreign factories.

Sales in global passenger car market were expected to increase by 2 percent to 76.4 million units in 2015, said the group, expecting the highest speed would be seen in China, where 19 million new cars would be sold in 2015, 6 percent more than in current year while sales in the United States would grow by 2 percent to 16.4 million vehicles.

VDA estimated that global car sales in 2014 increased by 2 percent to 74.7 million units. Among them, 17.9 million were purchased by Chinese consumers, 10 percent higher than the previous year. 16 million vehicles were sold in the United States. The Western Europe market also returned to growth in 2014 after four years of decline, the sales increased by over 4 percent to over 12 million cars.