BEIJING: Automobile sales in China, the world's largest car market, will likely rise 5.4% to hit 27.5 million in 2022, the country's top auto industry body said.

Of the total, sales of new energy vehicles is expected to grow 47% to 5 million, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) said in a statement published on its official WeChat account.

For 2021, CAAM expects sales to rise 3.1% year-on-year to 26.1 million, with new energy vehicles sales rising 1.5 times to 3.4 million.

Disrupted by a prolonged global shortage of semiconductors, China's auto sales dropped 9.1% in November from a year earlier, marking their seventh consecutive monthly fall, CAAM data showed earlier this month.