UPDATE 1-Atlantia's H1 profit up 7 pct on toll hikes

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ROME Aug 5 (Reuters) - Italian toll-road operator Atlantia (ATL.MI) on Tuesday reported net profit in the first half of the year rose 7 percent, boosted by toll hikes as a slowing economy bit into traffic growth on its highways.

The company reported first-half profit of 366.6 million euros ($566.9 million), up from 341.4 million euros in the year earlier period. Revenue rose 8 percent to 1.67 billion euros.

The company said it expected 2008 results to improve from last year, despite a lack of traffic growth due to the economic slowdown. It reported traffic growth of just 0.2 percent in the first half of the year.

"2008 has so far been generally characterised by the slowdown and the limited ability to project the growth of traffic on the Italian motorway subsidiaries' networks as a result of adverse economic conditions," the company said in a statement.

Atlantia shares have slumped 34 percent this year partly due to concerns about a slowdown in traffic growth, underperforming the broader GICS pan-European highways and railtracks sector whose constituents are on average down some 28 percent in the same period, according to Reuters data. (Reporting by Deepa Babington; Editing by Greg Mahlich)