GM aims to double Chevy sales in Europe

DETROIT (Reuters) - General Motors Co GM.UL aims to more than double sales for its flagship Chevrolet brand in Europe as part of a business plan that was presented to the company's board this week, the brand's chief said on Thursday.

Brent Dewar, vice president of Chevrolet, said at the Reuters Autos Summit in Detroit that the No. 1 U.S. automaker is targeting sales of 1 million Chevrolets in the region, up from slightly more than 500,000 vehicles sold in 2008.

"We have that in our business plan to take that to 1 million units in Europe as we start to launch products like the Chevrolet Cruze and the Spark," Dewar said.

"We haven't set a target when we'll get to it, but in our planning horizon we look over the 2014 time frame."

GM's decision this week to keep the Opel European business will not impact its growth plan for Chevrolet there because the two brands have different design cues and focus, Dewar said.

"We see growth for both brands," he said.

(Reporting by Soyoung Kim, editing by Matthew Lewis)