AUTOSHOW-UPDATE 2-Hummer sale awaits uncertain China approval

* GM in process to win China approval for Hummer sale

* GM hopeful deal will close but says outcome uncertain
(Adds comments by head of GM's China operations, other
background)

By Soyoung Kim and Kevin Krolicki

DETROIT, Jan 13 (Reuters) - The head of General Motors Co's
[GM.UL] China operations said on Wednesday GM is still awaiting
Chinese government approval for a deal to sell Hummer, leaving
the fate of the brand uncertain.

GM reached a deal last year to sell the Hummer SUV brand to
a group led by Sichuan-based Tengzhong Heavy Industrial
Machinery but the closing of the deal has been delayed beyond
GM's initial expectations.

"We're involved in the government approval process," GM
China Group President Kevin Wale said in a presentation at the
Automotive News Congress in Detroit.

"(It's) still to be decided. I don't know what the outcome
is going to be," Wale said. "We're hopeful it will be decided
in the very near future, but we don't know."

Wale said he was hopeful the Hummer deal would close but
said Chinese government officials were still considering
whether to approve the deal under a review process intended to
head off a glut of investment in the auto industry.

"The problem is that Tengzhong is not an established
manufacturer and that's an issue that has to be addressed,"
Wale said.

"It's not a recognized car manufacturer, and they have
rules that people cannot just randomly go into key businesses
so that they don't end up with too many suppliers, too many
people trying to compete," Wale said.

He said Chinese officials had not raised any concerns about
the Hummer brand, a military-derived SUV line that became a
symbol of gas-guzzling excess in the U.S. market.

He said he did not know GM's deadline for reaching a deal
on Hummer.

"There's always deadlines. I'm not close to that. The
deadline will be with people here," Wale said.

The government of Sichuan, where Tengzhong is based,
remains supportive of the Hummer deal, Wale said.

GM Chief Executive Ed Whitacre said last week the company
aimed to close the sale by the end of January. GM had initially
planned to close the deal at the end of September and then said
that the closing would occur by the end of 2009.

If the sale of Hummer fails, it would mark the fourth sale
of a GM brand that has fallen through or been abandoned by the
automaker, which was restructured in bankruptcy last year with
the support of the Obama administration.

Deals by GM to sell Saturn and Saab collapsed last year,
and GM scrapped a plan to sell its Germany-based Opel unit to a
group lead by Magna International MGa.TO.

GM is also shutting down Saab after determining that none
of the potential bidders for the money-losing brand had
presented financially viable plans.