Chinese carmaker Chery Automobile has recorded a 68.8 percent growth in the number of exported vehicles during the first quarter, the company said on Sunday.

It exported 37,976 vehicles, 15,478 ones more than the corresponding period last year. The exports accounted for 34.9 percent of its sales in the first quarter.

To date, the 11-year-old company, based in Wuhu, east China's Anhui Province, has sold cars to 69 foreign countries. It is ambitious to enter another 15 countries in Central America and the Caribbean this year.

Chery plans to raise its annual output to one million vehicles by 2010.

Vehicle sales are forecast to reach a record 480,000 units this year, after rising 24.8 percent year on year to 381,000 units in 2007. The company remained the country's fourth largest automobile seller in 2007, it said.

Its exports, which jumped 132 percent to 119,800 units in 2007, were expected to rise to 180,000 this year.