UPDATE 1-Daimler says truck orders better since mid-year

* Daimler Trucks chief says sees light at end of tunnel

* New orders improving slightly

* Shares of Daimler up 2.3 percent

(Adds quote, background, share price)

STUTTGART, Germany, Oct 19 (Reuters) - The world's biggest truckmaker, Daimler (DAIGn.DE), has seen a light at the end of the tunnel in its trucks business, said Daimler Truck head Andreas Renschler.

"Our new orders have been improving slightly since the middle of the year," he was quoted as saying in the prepared text of a speech he is holding at an event in Berlin on Monday.

Renschler's comments add to signs that the worst may be over for the world's truck market. In the first half of this year, new orders for Daimler trucks fell by 59 percent.

Daimler shares rose 2.3 percent at 35.955 euros by 1130 GMT, while Germany's blue-chip index .GDAXI was up 1.3 percent.

Heavy-duty truck markets have been savaged on both sides of the Atlantic as the global financial crisis has left buyers starved of money to fund the purchase of new vehicles, while deep recession has further dampened demand.

But tentative signs of stabilisation have emerged in recent months with annualised rates of decline not steepening from the headlong tumble recorded around the turn of the year.

Daimler is the world's biggest truck maker, followed by Volvo (VOLVb.ST), whose chief executive said last week that the European truck market had reached a floor around the start of the third quarter. [ID:nLF622515]

Daimler said earlier this month it was seeing evidence that the U.S. truck market has bottomed out, though it remained cautious about the pace of any recovery. [ID:nN07469948] (Reporting by Hendrik Sackmann; Writing by Maria Sheahan)