Ma Deji, Chery's deputy general manager, said its company has set the 2010 sales target at 700,000 units. But a company insider told the CBN that Chery will not loose ground to the Shenzhen-based BYD Auto, which has planned to sell 800,000 units this year.

The Anhui-based automaker just inaugurated a new plant in Wuhu, Anhui province on Jan 16. With a 10-billion-yuan investment, the plant will finally add up Chery's annual vehicle production capacity to 1 million units after it goes into production in 2012.

Chery had already built a 4.7 billion yuan ($688.3 million) plant in Dalian, Liaoning province last year. The Dalian plant, with an annual production capacity of 200,000 vehicles, is set to go into operation in June 2011.

As of 2009, the automaker was able to produce 600,000 units of vehicles annually. It sold more than 500,000 cars that year, ranking the first among China's home grown automakers.

Chery's president Yin Tongyue said at the beginning of 2009, that his company plans to realize the annual sales target of 1 million vehicles as early as 2011.

BYD Auto, 10 percent owned by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc, aims to produce 800,000 vehicles this year, up from a previous target of 700,000 units, backed by robust demand.

It reached its 2009 target of 400,000 vehicles in November 2009, and expected the final sales to come in at around 440,000 units, Paul Lin, manager of the company's marketing department said in December, 2009.