SKF CEO says has yet to see upturn in market demand

STOCKHOLM, Sept 15 (Reuters) - Sweden's SKF (SKFb.ST), the world's biggest bearings maker, said on Tuesday it had yet to see any recovery in demand though it still expected sales volumes to decline at a slower pace in the third quarter. "July and August was weak as expected, but we don't see any dramatic change in September apart from the seasonality change," SKF Chief Executive Tom Johnstone said in a telephone interview.

"We haven't seen any uptick after the summer holidays."

Johnstone said the company planned to continue producing less than it sold throughout this year to run down inventories.

"In the third quarter we will still have a gap between sales and production, that's clear. A similar type of gap that we have seen," he said. "I think when we get to the fourth quarter that gap will narrow quite a bit."

(Reporting by Johannes Hellstrom; writing by Niklas Pollard)