SHENZHEN: Chinese people's growing passion for owning a car has prompted Manheim, the world's largest automotive auction and remarketing service company, to consolidate its presence in this burgeoning market.

Soon after it set up the first joint venture on used vehicle auction in Shanghai on November 29, Manheim opened the second joint venture in this southern boomtown yesterday with China Merchants Group as its new partner.

It is the first international automotive auction company to enter into the Chinese market.

"The joint venture, Manheim China Merchants, will be headquartered in Shenzhen and gradually expand its business, helping to build a unified used vehicle auction network throughout China," said Neville Green, president of the new JV, in the opening ceremony.

The company has worked out a long-term development strategy in China and several new auction sites will soon be opened in major cities across the country.

However, the company declined to disclose the amount of investments in the JVs and its future new projects.

Yu Yuanbo, vice-chairman of China Auto Dealers Association, said the introduction of auction on used vehicle market would help stimulate the transactions.

"We forecast that the used vehicle transaction will rocket in the next two years and the booming business will maintain quite a long time," Yu said.

Currently, the transaction of used vehicles is just one-third of that of the new vehicles on the mainland, but in the developed countries and regions, the transaction of used vehicles are three times that of the new vehicles, which means great business opportunity for used vehicle dealers, he said.

Manheim China Merchants will start auctions at 11 am every Thursday in Shenzhen Auto Park, the city's only permanent auto exchange market located in the Nanshan District.

It held its first auction yesterday and more than half of the 60 auctioned vehicles were sold.

The US company recorded $2.4 billion revenue in 2005 and had 135 locations worldwide.