TOKYO, April 25 (Reuters) - Honda Motor Co, Japan's second-biggest automaker, said on Friday it aims to boost its worldwide vehicle sales by 7.7 percent to 3.11 million units, excluding motorbikes, this business year.
It forecast a 0.7 percent rise in domestic sales to 855,000 units for the 12 months to March 2004, and North American sales to grow 2.5 percent to 1.56 million units.
Sales in the European market are expected to rise 1.4 percent to 210,000 units, it said.
Motorbike sales were seen up 17.3 percent at 9.48 million units.
Separately, Honda said it would assume an average dollar rate of 116 yen and euro rate of 125 yen for 2003/04, compared with an assumption of 123 yen and 115 yen for the just-ended business year.
It also said it would seek rules to allow it to buy back up to 100 billion yen ($834.7 million) or 2.6 percent of its own shares. ($1=119.79 yen)