Asia is overtaking the US as the world’s largest market for auto sales but the US will remain the more lucrative market for the next decade, according to a senior executive at GM.

Paul Ballew, director of GM’s global market and industry sales in the Asia-Pacific region were for the first time expected to overtake North America as they approached 21-million vehicles.

US sales are expected to reach about 15-million vehicles this year.

Growth in China, India and other emerging markets will push global auto sales to a record 70-million vehicles in 2007, Ballew said.

“If we go back a decade, 80 percent of global sales were in the developed market of the US, Canada, Australia, Japan and Western Europe,” Ballew said. “So far this year it’s about 62 percent.”

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