CHENGDU, China (AP):

Minivan salesman Zhu Yi has a problem that most auto dealers elsewhere would happily swap for their own: he does not have enough vehicles to satisfy customer demand.

"Sales are exploding," says Zhu, a 32-year-old manager at a General Motors Co joint venture dealership in Chengdu, pointing to charts on his laptop that vividly plot the steep incline.

Car buyers in Chengdu, a grimy city in southwestern China's Sichuan province best known for its giant pandas and spicy food, face waits of up to several weeks for some popular models, he says.

"We simply don't have the cars people want. Sales could be climbing even faster."

As growing numbers of Chinese shop for their first vehicles, or trade up for newer models, sales in China's immense hinterland are booming, encouraged by tax cuts, government subsidies and growing consumer spending power.

In regions striving to catch up with relatively well-off coastal cities, families and small businesses are gladly swapping scooters and bicycles for the comfort and convenience of the automobile.

The supercharged growth has propelled China ahead of the United States as the world's biggest auto market and provided a lifeline for automakers like General Motors and Toyota Motor Corp as sales crashed in other markets.

The government's role in spurring the market has been crucial, but China's still low level of car ownership points to the potential for decades of strong growth even as some analysts warn the future holds tougher competition and dwindling profits.

Financial crisis

To counter a slowdown late last year as the global financial crisis unfolded, the government halved taxes on purchases of small autos and is spending 5 billion yuan (about US$730 million) on subsidies for purchases of light trucks and minivans in the countryside, where most of China's 1.3 billion people live.

Earlier this month, the purchase tax was raised to 7.5 per cent, though subsidies also increased.

Happy with the results from this year's rescue package for the industry, Beijing is leery of risking a relapse, analysts say.

"The message sent by the government is that they will not let the auto industry weaken, especially not in 2010," said Jia Xinguang, chief analyst at China National Automotive Industry Consulting and Developing Corp, an investment-management company.

Enticed by the potentially huge market, automakers have poured billions of dollars into ventures here in the past two decades. Total sales this year forecast to shoot past 13 million units, up a third from last year's 9.8 million.

Meanwhile, sales in the United States have faltered, with January-October vehicle sales totalling 8.6 million, compared with Autodata CorpChina's figure for 10.9 million in China during the same period.

The revival in sales has been opportune for GM as it struggles to restructure following a spell in bankruptcy court. Including minivans and other passenger cars, SAIC-GM-Wuling, GM's minivehicle venture in China, led nationwide sales in November, with 83,753 units sold.