Danone, French food giant, doubled its first-half net profit to 704 million euros (894.1 million U.S. dollars) from 346.0 million euros in the same period of last year, the group said Wednesday in a statement.

Danone now revised up the internal growth of its business to 7- 8 percent this year from 5-7 percent set earlier and revised upwards growth of net current earnings per share to about 15 percent this year from about 10 percent earlier.

The statement cited Danone's Chairman Franck Riboud as saying that he was "confident of the group's capacity to continue developing at a strong rate in 2006."

Danone's Finance director Antoine Giscard d'Estaing said that result "is the result of continued improvement of activity in France" and that "growth is still very strong in Asia, in North and South America and in eastern Europe."

The price of shares in Danone rose 3.18 percent to 103.90 euros in early trading on Wednesday.

Source: Xinhua