New Delhi: India's economic growth rate is expected to moderate to 7.8 percent in 2008-09, mainly on account of a global slowdown, said Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), a marketing research wing of the prestigious publication, The Economist.

Christopher C. Doyle, EIU's country manager for India, told reporters Thursday that India was the second fastest growing economy in the world after China.

"We expect that India's economic growth rate would be at 7.8 percent in the next fiscal," said Doyle. He said EIU chose India also for the study because it was a growing and a booming economy.

"We, with our expertise, can provide services linked to research, data marketing, commodity, forecast and other requirements of the booming industry in India to the government, if asked," he added.

Doyle said critical decisions have to be made through reliable or unreliable information. "We would give the industry the right approach. This would be done with the help of global network we have in 200 countries," he said.

His colleague, Robin Bew, said the EIU was hopeful that with its expertise the Indian industry would benefit a lot.