General Motors India will hike car prices by upto 2% from 9th January to cover up the rising input costs, a senior company official said on Tuesday. It will hike its car prices to cover input costs and the impact of weakening of the rupee last year, P Balendran, vice-president at General Motors India, said.

General Motor India, said last week that it had missed its 2008 sales target of 75,000 cars. However, its sales were 65,702, a rise of 9.5% from last year. The company has not yet set a target for the year 2009 because of the uncertain market conditions.

Balendran said, "Normally we fix sales targets in January, but this year we have not done so due to uncertain market condition. Last year everyone said that the market was likely to grow by at least 22%, Then it was scaled down." He added, "We do not expect to the market to improve at least for the first six months of 2009."

General Motors India, which has two manufacturing plants in India, planning to launch three vehicles this year, starting later with this month a four-wheel drive, automatic transmission Chevrolet Captiva.