From correspondents in London, England, 08:01 PM IST

Passenger car sales for November rose 61 percent in India and nearly doubled in China in a sign that Asia is increasingly driving the global car industry, the Financial Times reported Wednesday.

The paper said the growth follows this week's landmark deal under which the US carmaker General Motors ceded majority control of its thriving Chinese passenger car venture to SAIC, its state-owned Chinese partner.

The deal was part of a move that will take the Shanghai-Detroit partnership into a $650mn joint venture, under which the two groups will produce low-cost vehicles in India.

The shareholding change could mark a shift in the balance of power between carmakers in the US and China, the world's largest and fastest growing car market.

A total of 1.04 million passenger cars were sold in November in China, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said this week.

In the first 11 months of the year, 9.23 million passenger cars were sold in China, up nearly 50 percent from a year earlier.

In India, car sales rose 61 percent to 133,687 in November from 83,121 a year earlier, according to the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers.

Between April and November, carmakers sold 1.22 million passenger vehicles, 20 percent more than a year earlier.

Trucks and bus sales in India doubled from a year earlier to 40,847 units in November, the FT said.

(Staff Writer, © IANS)