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Peugeot lifts cash target as restructuring bites

PARIS, July 31 (Reuters) - Struggling French carmaker PSA Peugeot Citroen raised its closely watched cash goal for 2013 as it posted first-half losses contained by cost-cutting.

Excluding restructuring costs, Peugeot aims to reduce last year's 3 billion euros ($4 billion) in negative cash flow "at least by half" in 2013, Chief Financial Officer Jean-Baptiste de Chatillon said as he presented first-half results on Wednesday.

The company's restructuring progress is "going more quickly than expected", Chatillon told reporters on a conference call, though he added: "We've still got a lot of work to do."

Peugeot, which had previously targeted 1.5 billion euros in full-year cash burn, recorded positive cash flow of 203 million euros in January-June as it cut capital expenditure by 764 million euros.

The operating loss widened to 65 million euros from 51 million euros before one-off gains and charges on a 3.8 percent revenue decline to 27.71 billion euros, the company said.

Peugeot also cut its net loss by almost half to 426 million euros from 818 million euros a year earlier.