Korea retained its status as the world’s fifth-largest automaking nation last year with over 4.2 million vehicles produced, a local industry body said Tuesday.

The country’s five automakers produced some 4,272,000 cars in 2010, up 21.6 percent from a year earlier, according to the Korea Automobile Manufacturers Association (KAMA).

China, the world’s largest market for automobiles, became the world’s largest producer for the second consecutive year by churning out more than 18.26 million units, a 32.4 percent spike from 2009.

Japan followed with some 9.62 vehicles, and the United States was next with 7,73 units that represented a 35 percent increase from the previous year. Germany was ranked fourth with just over 5.9 million units.

The combined global production of automobiles jumped 23.4 percent on-year to over 77 million units in 2010, according to the KAMA.

“Korea placed fifth for the sixth consecutive year by producing its record number of 4.27 million cars, accounting for 5.5 percent of global production,” the KAMA said in a press release.

The proportion of Korean vehicles in the global market, however, edged down from 5.6 percent in 2009 as those of China gained 1.2 percentage points to 23.7 percent from a year earlier and the United States by 1.7 percentage points to 10 percent.

“Production by the United States jumped 35 percent from a year earlier to about 7,738,000 vehicles on the recovery of its economy, normalization of its Big 3 automakers (GM, Ford and Chrysler) and opening of their new plants,” it said. 

(Yonhap News)