BEIJING/SHANGHAI, Jan 9 (Reuters) - China's passenger car sales climbed 8.3% in December, helped by a price war among automakers although they fell back from a strong surge a month earlier.

Sales came in at 2.37 million vehicles for the month, the China Passenger Car Association said on Tuesday. Full-year sales rose 5.3% to 21.93 million units. (Reporting by Qiaoyi Li, Zhang Yan and Brenda Goh; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)