South Korea retained its status as the world's fifth-largest car producer last
year for five years in a row with over 4.6 million vehicles produced, a trade
body said Tuesday.
Industry leader Hyundai Motor Co. and four other
automakers in the country rolled out an aggregate 4,658,000 cars in 2011, up 9
percent from a year earlier, according to the Korea Automobile Manufacturers
Association (KAMA).
China churned out 18.42 million cars last year to
be the world's largest automaking nation for the third consecutive
year.
The United States regained the second-largest producer status
last year by producing 8.65 million vehicles, beating Japan with 8.4 million
cars. Germany ranked fourth with 6.3 million units.
The combined
global production of automobiles edged up 3 percent on-year to over 85.24
million units in 2011, according to the KAMA.
South Korea took up 5.8
percent of the world's overall car output last year, it said.