China may scrap tax incentives for small cars next year if the market remains strong through the rest of 2010, a government researcher said on Thursday.

Xu Changming, director of the information resource department of the State Information Centre, made the comments on the sidelines of an auto industry conference ahead of the Beijing auto show, China's largest, which begins on Friday.

China's car sales zoomed nearly 50 percent last year, even as sales in the rest of the world fell, thanks in part to a series of government incentives designed to stimulate spending during the global downturn.

Car sales have continued to show strong growth this year, up 76 percent in the first three months of the year from the same period of 2009, according to government data.