BERLIN (AFP) - Volkswagen chairman Martin Winterkorn predicted world car sales will fall by up to 20 percent next year and said the industry will have to confront "painful" changes, a German newspaper reported Sunday.

Winterkorn said Europe's biggest car maker would survive the crisis better than others "but the fall could be up to 10 percent for the Volkswagen group," he told Suddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.

He warned that world car industry could see sales fall by "almost 20 percent" next year.

"The situation for us is not great but it is not radically bad," Winterkorn was quoted as saying in advanced excerpts of an interview to be published Monday.

"The last few weeks have shown us that we were well prepared, but the same goes for us, we cannot go on like this."

The Volkswagen chief went on: "We expect the fall in sales to continue and even get worse in some circumstances. The industry faces painful changes." Winterkorn confirmed the company's forecasts for 2008 with an increase in sales and operating profit that he would not give.

He said there was no plan yet to reduce working hours at the company's factories.