BERLIN, Dec. 30 (Xinhua) -- Opel car sales in Germany in 2009 increased by 31 percent over 2008, thanks to the government's incentive scheme, the company said in a statement on Wednesday.

    Opel sold around 339,000 vehicles in its home market in 2009, accounting for 8.9 percent of its total market sales, against 258,274 the previous year and a four-year high.

    Under the incentive scheme, the government provided 2,500 euros (3,600 U.S. dollars) to consumers who traded in cars at least nine years old on new vehicles.

    However, Opel sales could slump by about 90,000 vehicles, or 27 percent, in 2010 due to the end of the government's incentive program, said Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer, director of the Center for Automotive Research at the University of Duisburg-Essen, reported by the local media.

    In September, Opel was set to be sold by its U.S. parent company General Motors (GM) to the Canadian auto parts group Magna International and its Russian partner Sberbank.

    However, GM reconsidered the importance of Opel and Vauxhall, a GM-owned British car manufacturer, to its global strategy and cancelled the deal in November.

Special Report:  Global Financial Crisis