Siemens says economic slowdown has not hit orders

HANOVER, Germany (Reuters) - Germany's Siemens AG (SIEGn.DE) said slower economic growth had not impacted its order books yet and it still expected a strong book-to-bill ratio for the time being.

"A slowdown is not visible in our order books yet," the company said in a presentation on its website for a conference organized by financial group Citigroup (C.N).

Siemens shares were up 2.4 percent at 84.73 euros by 1348 GMT, outperforming Germany's blue-chip index .GDAXI which was up 1.2 percent.

It also said it expects pretax profit of between 60 million euros ($91.1 million) and 80 million from property sales in the current quarter.

Siemens said in January it planned to sell parts of its real estate portfolio and expected to garner a high triple-digit million euro sum.

The divestment of assets, mainly production sites, would also create additional cashflow in 2008, the company said at the time.

Siemens said it aimed to publish first results from an audit of turnkey projects at its power generation unit by April this year and audit other turnkey projects as well. It said the entire backlog would be examined.

The trains-to-lightbulbs conglomerate is in the midst of its biggest restructuring in nearly two decades. Chief Executive Peter Loescher is set to slim down the company to catch up with more profitable rivals such as General Electric (GE.N).

Loescher has so far scaled down the management board and regrouped the company's 10 units into three major divisions: industry, energy and healthcare.

(Reporting by Nicola Leske and Jens Hack; Editing by David Holmes)