CHINA may produce more than 8.6 million vehicles this year as it narrows the gap with Japan and the United States, the world's top two auto makers, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

China's economic growth, averaging about 10 percent over the past five years, is raising demand for automobiles and has boosted production from about 100,000 vehicles a year in the 1980s to 7.28 million last year, making the country the world's third-biggest vehicle producer.