Toyota Motor Corp said on Monday it aimed to sell 700,000 vehicles in China next year, up 46 percent from the year before, after raising its China sales target for 2007 by nearly 12 percent, buoyed by hot-selling models.

Toyota, which competes with Honda Motor Co and other global carmakers in China, sold about 380,000 vehicles in China in the first 10 months of this year, up 67 percent from a year earlier, a company executive told Reuters.

That significantly outpaced 24 percent industry-wide car sales growth in the world's second-largest auto market.

The company's sales for the full year were estimated at about 480,000 units, up from the previous target of 430,000 units, it said in a statement.

The Toyota executive, who asked not to be identified, attributed the brisk China sales to the popularity of the Camry, the best-selling car in the United States in eight of the past nine years, as well as the new generation of its Corolla sedan, which it started producing at a plant in Tianjin in May.

Next year, the top Japanese auto maker will roll out a locally made model of its Yaris compact in China, where small cars are increasingly popular due to rising fuel prices.

Toyota, which commanded 7.5 percent of the China car market as of the end of October, completed construction in May of its third plant in Tianjin, increasing capacity at its venture with FAW Group to 420,000 units.

Toyota is also in discussions about building a second plant at its venture in south China, which makes the hot-selling Camry.

(Reporting by Fang Yan; Editing by Edmund Klamann)

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