BEIJING, July 10 (Reuters) - SAIC Motor

president Wang Xiaoqiu has been elected chairman in a

leadership reshuffle as China's largest automaker navigates

through sluggish sales in its home market and hefty tariffs it

faces in the European Union.

Wang takes over from Chen Hong who resigned from the

chairman post on reaching retirement age of 63, according to a

company filing with the Shanghai stock market on Wednesday. Vice

president Jia Jianxu now serves as president.

Wang, 59, is a veteran auto executive with an engineering

background who started as a quality control manager at SAIC and

headed the joint venture with General Motors ( GM ) in the past.

The leadership reshuffle at the state-owned automaker comes

as SAIC plans to request a hearing from the European Commission

on the high tariffs it faces on its EV exports to the bloc.

The provisional duties of between 17.4% and 37.6% on

Chinese-made electric cars are designed to prevent what the EU

has described as a threatened flood of cheap EVs built with

state subsidies, which China strongly opposes.

The tariffs by the EU, a major market for SAIC's exports,

were compounded by its sluggish domestic sales.

SAIC's joint ventures with Volkswagen and GM

posted a decline in sales amid anaemic demand and

intensified competition in the world's largest auto market where

a protracted price war has drawn in over 40 brands.

SAIC-VW sales fell 14.4% in June from a year earlier, while

at its JV with GM sales plunged 72%.

Overall, SAIC booked an 11.8% fall in first-half car sales

at 1.83 million units. More than a quarter of its vehicles were

delivered to overseas markets in the period and its MG brand was

the best-selling Chinese EV brand in Europe.

By comparison, China's electric vehicle giant BYD

sold 1.61 million passenger vehicles in the first

half, up 28.8% year-on-year, closing the gap with Tesla

after handing back the world's top EV vendor title to the U.S.

competitor in the first quarter.