UPDATE 1-INTERVIEW-GM sees European sales slightly up this year

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By Martin Dokoupil

PRAGUE, June 26 (Reuters) - General Motors Corp sees its European car sales rising slightly this year from last year's 2 million units, GM Europe's sales and marketing chief Jonathan Browning said on Tuesday.

Browning told Reuters growth would come thanks to firming markets in central and east European including Russia, and especially from the Chevrolet brand.

"I see us showing some improvement year-on-year," he said in an interview.

Browning said the rise would probably be small, but declined to be more specific.

Central and eastern Europe will be the main growth area, he said.

"We go from less than a tenth of our European business, that is 6 percent in 2001 in central and eastern Europe, to a projection for this year of almost a quarter of our business," he said earlier at a car conference in Prague.

"It is a dramatic change in terms of significance of these markets in a short period of time."

In all of central and eastern Europe, GM sees sales jumping by 44 percent this year to 505,000 cars.

Browning told Reuters he saw sales in Russia alone soaring to 240,000 this year from 133,000 last year.

First half results are already showing some improvement across the continent, he said.

"There will be grossly over 40,000 units of growth over the first half of 2007 versus the first half of 2006," he said.

In the first half of 2006, GM sold 1.07 million cars in Europe.

Keywords: GM SALES/