SINGAPORE, Feb 8 Germany's BMW BMWG.DE, the world's biggest luxury carmaker, will

SINGAPORE, Feb 8 (Reuters) Germany's BMW , the world's biggest luxury carmaker, will start assembling cars in India next month and expects to produce 1,000 vehicles in the plant's first year of operation, it said on Thursday.

The Munich-based company also said it would stick to its goal of selling 1,50,000 cars in Asia by next year, after sales in the region climbed 13.8 percent last year to a record 1,26,949 vehicles.

BMW's plant in Chennai is the group's fifth factory in Asia and will make 3 and 5 series BMWs exclusively for the Indian market.

''It will be around a thousand units this year and we'll bring it up to the plant's capacity of 1,700 next year,'' BMW management board member Michael Ganal told journalists after a news conference.

BMW, the world's biggest premium carmaker ahead of DaimlerChrysler's Mercedes-Benz, hopes to sell around 1,000 cars this year in India, up from just 257 last year.

Ganal said India was a difficult market but added that the firm expects to profit from rising demand for its luxury cars as a result of rising wealth.

Sales in the premium segment -- which includes such brands as BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Lexus , and Audi -- in Asia's third-largest economy reached 5,400 cars last year and Ganal expects that figure to rise to around 10,000 by 2012.

The company also said sales of BMW brand cars in Asia rose 15.5 percent in 2006 from the previous year to 1,09,848 units.

Sales of its popular Mini in Asia rose 3.7 percent to 16,959 vehicles, while its ultra-luxury Rolls-Royce Phantoms sold 142 times -- 40 more than in 2005.

Sales of BMW motorbikes were almost unchanged at 3,620.

Japan, which accounts for the lion's share of sales in the region, recorded a 5.6 percent rise to 62,068 units, while China showed the strongest growth rate in Asia last year, up 35 percent to 44,700 vehicles.

Last month, BMW announced a 5 percent rise in 2006 group sales to a record 49 billion euros ($64 billion) and reaffirmed that its 2006 pretax earnings would hit 4 billion euros on the back of a 3.5 percent rise in unit sales to just over 1.37 million BMW, Mini and Rolls-Royce cars.

($1=.7684 Euro) REUTERS CS DS1400