The Korea Automobile Manufacturers Association forecasts that South Korea will manufacture around 7.1 million automobiles by 2012.

The association said in a report on Thursday that five million of those auto units would be produced domestically. Overseas production will see an eight-fold increase from last year to amount to some 2.1 million units in 2012, backed by automakers' projected expansion of production plants around the world.

The report further forecast that domestic production would stabilize at the five million unit-level after reaching an all-time high in 2012.