The number of registered vehicles in South Korea is soon expected to top 20 million, the government said Wednesday, amid a surge in sales of imported cars here.

As of the end of last month, the number of registered vehicles in the country came to 19,951,810, up 2.8 percent from 2013, according to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.

The number will likely surpass 20 million before the end of October, the ministry said, noting the number has grown an average 0.3 percent on-month this year.

If the number reaches 20 million, it will have doubled in the 17 years since 1997 when the number first surpassed 10 million.

The ministry said the number of registered vehicles is expected to grow 4 percent on-year in 2014, significantly higher than the average growth rate in the 2 percent range in recent years.

The sudden increase has mostly been attributed to rising sales of imported vehicles.

According to related data released earlier by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, the number of locally produced vehicles sold here in the first nine months of 2014 came to 1,049,012, up 3.2 percent from the same period last year.

However, the number of imported cars sold over the cited period spiked 34.2 percent on-year to 155,810. (Yonhap)