Boeing Co. intends to wind down its C-17 military cargo-plane program owing to its failure to secure pledges for new orders from the Pentagon, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

The C-17 is one of Boeing's biggest programs as the Pentagon spends around 3 billion dollars annually on the large military transport plane, it said.

The Chicago aerospace company has enough orders to keep making the C-17 through 2008. But since many components must be ordered months in advance, Boeing said recently it needed commitments to order additional planes by Friday in order to avoid notifying certain suppliers to begin shutting down their lines, it added.

The Pentagon's declining to signal to Boeing any likelihood that it would buy more than 180 C-17s under contract indicates the severity of the defense-budget constraints as war and weapons costs continue to mount, according to the report.

Source: Xinhua