Boeing to raise India market forecast

[NEW DELHI] Boeing Co is set to raise its India market forecast as the planemaker expects surging travel demand in the world's second-most populous nation to withstand a slowdown in economic growth and a fall in rupee.

Boeing will increase its prediction for India plane demand in the next couple of months, Dinesh Keskar, a senior vice-president at the Chicago-based company, said in an interview to Bloomberg Television's Haslinda Amin in Singapore yesterday.

The planemaker in 2012 raised its 20-year India market forecast by 9.8 per cent, at least the third increase in a row. Carriers in the Asian nation will need 1,450 new aircraft, worth US$175 billion over the next two decades, it said last year.