Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd said Monday its 2009 net profit rose 35 percent from a year earlier, helped by government incentives aimed at driving up sales of small cars.

Geely -- the Hong Kong-listed unit of Zhejiang Geely Holding, which is buying Volvo Cars -- said full-year net profit rose to 1.18 billion yuan (173 million dollars) in 2009 from 879.1 million yuan in the previous year.

"The increase was partly helped by the government's policies to promote economy sedans but also as a result of the improving product quality and rising customers' satisfaction over Geely's products," the company said.

Revenue more than tripled to 14.1 billion yuan from 4.3 billion yuan.

Gui Shengyue, chief executive of Geely Automobile, said its parent group plans to eventually inject Volvo into the listed company. But he was vague on the timetable.

"Definitely this won't take too long. Maybe three years?" he told a press conference.

Gui also said that the parent group, one of China's largest private car makers, planned to bring Ford Motor's loss-making Swedish brand Volvo back into the black by the end of this year.

"We believe Volvo's business can break even in the fourth quarter of this year," he said, without disclosing further details.

Geely said last month it would spend 2.7 billion US dollars taking over Volvo, ending a decade under the ownership of the US auto giant.

China's auto sales soared to 13.64 million units in 2009 on government policy incentives, outstripping those of the United States for the first time in January last year to make the Asian giant the world's biggest car market.

The measures included slashing taxes on cars with engines smaller than 1.6 litres and subsidising clean-technology vehicles.