Volkswagen is targeting a decline in full-year sales of 5 percent, or not much below 5.92 million vehicles, from an earlier forecast for a 10 percent fall, group sales chief Detlef Wittig told Autogazette in an interview published on its website.

That is our goal, and we are confident we can achieve this, he said.

Volkswagen, like many of its peers, has benefited since the start of the year from a government scrappage scheme to boost sales of new cars and help remove older, less environmentally friendly vehicles from the road. [ID:nL3474996]

In 2008, deliveries rose 0.6 percent to a record 6.23 million vehicles, making it the third largest carmaker by volume after Toyota and General Motors.

(Reporting by Christiaan Hetzner; editing by Simon Jessop)

Toyota Volkswagen