NEW YORK - General Motors Co (GM), the biggest overseas automaker in China, said it intends to exercise an option to buy back a 1 percent stake in its main car venture in the country to make it an equally held unit with its partner.

"We have an option to buy that 1 percent," Chief Executive Officer Dan Akerson told shareholders on Monday at the automaker's annual meeting in Detroit. "It's our intention to exercise that."

GM sold a 1 percent stake in Shanghai General Motors Co to its partner SAIC Motor Corp in 2010, reducing its holding to 49 percent. GM received a call option at the time to repurchase the 1 percent stake.