Vienna - The Austrian-based construction group Strabag SE on Wednesday said operating profits for 2007 were up 14.6 per cent to 312.4 million euros (486.5 million dollars), owing to booming business in the Middle East and the CEE region.

Revenues were up 4.8 per cent to 9.88 billion euros, output volume increased by 3.5 per cent to 10.75 million euros.

Strabag said it planned to pay a dividend of 55 cents per share, the first since the builder listed on Vienna's stock exchange last October.

Profits per share were down to 2.05 euros, compared with last year's 2.73 euros. The reduction was due to a capital increase made necessary by Strabag's IPO and and the entry of Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska as core shareholder.

Particularly worth noting was the development on the Russian market, where the order backlog quadrupled to 1.68 billion euros over the previous year, Strabag said.

The future focus of the business activities will be on the Eastern European markets, where the GDP growth and the growth of the construction sector lie significantly above Western European levels, Strabag, which already generates 31 per cent of its output volume in the CEE region, said.

Strabag wants to raise output volume by 15 per cent in 2008 to achieve its target of growing to 20 billion euros by 2012, CEO Hans-Peter Haselsteiner said. (dpa)