(Adds detail on event, more forecast information)
NEW YORK, June 19 (Reuters) -General Motors Corp. Chief Executive Rick Wagoner on Thursday said overall U.S. auto sales for 2003 are edging toward the higher end of earlier forecasts, and said he hoped the need for incentives will ease next year as the economy improves.
"My personal view is that we are seeing the economy grow back up," Wagoner said at an event in New York to announce a new auto sales and service center in East Harlem.
Wagoner said GM, the world's largest automaker, had forecast earlier in the year that U.S. sales would range from 16.0 million to 16.5 million.
"Our bias is probably nudging closer to the 16.5 million," he said. "I think the market has been surprisingly resilient."
Ratings agency Fitch Ratings cut its debt ratings on GM on Thursday, the second agency to do so in a week. Wagoner said lowered ratings increased GM's costs, but he said he felt people were "probably overtrading on it."
GM executives and community leaders announced plans on Thursday to build a 300,000 to 400,000 square-foot Harlem auto sales complex. The project could bring 400 jobs to the largely-minority area, if its four planned dealerships eventually grow into six.
The market for auto sales to minorities is growing rapidly, Wagoner said.
But there are no dealerships in Manhattan above 60th Street, near the middle of the island. Alan Potamkin, who runs a group of New York auto dealers, said the number of customers and employees from the upper regions of Manhattan has grown.