BEIJING -- China's auto sales will exceed eight million in 2007, continuing its rapid growth this year, Jiang Lei, an official with China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) said on Friday.

The CAAM, an important source of industry information, earlier predicted that both China's auto production and sales would exceed seven million this year.

By the end of the year, China will overtake Germany to become the world's third largest auto manufacturer after the United States and Japan, according to the association.

Jiang attributed the constant expansion of auto-making industry to the booming economy, improvement of the industry's production capacity and fast development of home-brand manufacturers.

Meanwhile, auto manufacturers will work to improve product quality and services to expand the market, instead of counting on lowering prices in the next year, Jiang said.

During the first 11 months this year, China's auto production reached 6.59 million, a year-on-year increase of 27.92 percent, while sales scored a growth of 25.49 percent to 6.45 million, statistics from the CAAM showed.