German rail firm Deutsche Bahn H1 profits up 17 pct

BERLIN, July 26 (Reuters) - German state-owned railway operator Deutsche Bahn said on Thursday its first half operating profits rose 17 percent to 1.32 billion euros, even though growth in earnings and sales slowed due to a weakening economy.

Deutsche Bahn's CEO Ruediger Grube said there were no immediate plans for an IPO, despite government plans for a partial privatisation.

Europe's biggest rail operator also said its turnover rose in the first six months of 2012 by 3.3 percent year-on-year to 19.5 billion euros. It trimmed its forecast for full-year revenues to a target of 39 billion euros from 40 billion.

Internal documents obtained by Reuters showed Deutsche Bahn expects a full-year operating profit of 2.75 billion euros.

Deutsche Bahn said the pace of growth in its freight operations had slowed perceptibly in the first half.

The increase in operating profits was mainly due to passenger operations after the company transported a record number of passengers.

Earlier on Thursday, CEO Grube told German TV network ZDF he did not expect an IPO for now.

"Personally, at the moment I don't see an IPO at all," Grube said. "We've got a lot of challenges ahead of us. We'll tackle those first and see what happens then."

The German government had aimed to privatise part of Deutsche Bahn in 2008 but shelved the plan due to poor market conditions. It has said it will pursue a partial privatisation of the company but has not given a fixed time frame. (Reporting By Markus Wacket; writing by Erik Kirschbaum, editing by Gareth Jones and Rosalind Russell)