The Chinese motor industry is continuing to enjoy healthy growth but will undergo a "natural" slowdown as the market matures, Toyota says.

The automotive firm says it is anticipating growth of around 40 per cent in its Chinese sales this year, hitting 140,000 vehicles.

While the figure represents a lowering of Toyota's earlier prediction of shifting more than 150,000 units, the company said it believed suggestions that the market was facing a sharp drop off in sales were skewed.

Masashi Isogai, deputy executive representative of Toyota's China office, told China Daily that the market was following a normal pattern.

"The current slowdown in growth of China's automobile market is very natural following robust growth over the past two years," he explained.

"We do not expect a big sales growth in China next year but the market will rebound in 2006.

"We still believe China's auto market will grow to 10 million units by 2010, ranking second in the world," he said.

Toyota is targeting ten per cent control of the Chinese auto market by 2010.