Ford Motor Co. Chief Executive Officer Alan Mulally said that while the economy is the automaker’s main concern, he expects conditions to improve in the second half of the year.

“Our biggest concern of course is that the economy has slowed a little bit from where we thought it would be,” Mulally said today in a Bloomberg Television interview. “Having said that, most of the economists believe that it’s going to start picking up in the second half with everything that’s been put in place, both monetarily and fiscally.

"We believe with the economy coming back we’re going to exceed our performance from last year," he said.

Ford, the second-largest U.S. automaker, said today its global sales will rise 50 percent by 2015 to 8 million vehicles a year as it delivers more small cars and boosts revenue in Asia.