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By Andreas Moeser
HANOVER, Germany, July 29 (Reuters) - Volkswagen , Europe's biggest carmaker, is not expected to revise its full-year profit forecast when it releases second-quarter results on Tuesday, supervisory board sources told Reuters on Monday.
Many analysts had been expecting the group to reduce its guidance for the full year amid widespread expectations that profits in the second quarter have suffered from weak global auto markets.
But the sources on the VW supervisory board said they did not expect any change in the firm's forecast of 4.4 billion euros ($4.3 billion) in 2002 pre-tax profit because VW had cut its costs significantly.
"It can be assumed that VW will stick to its profit target for this year," one of the sources said.
The carmaker is likely to post an eight percent fall in pre-tax profit to 1.028 billion euros for its second quarter, according to a Reuters poll of 22 analysts.
A Volkswagen spokesman declined to comment.
Shares in VW were up 7.24 percent at 43.70 euros by 1421 GMT, extending gains made earlier in the day and outperforming a 6.09 percent gain in the Dow Jones Stoxx European auto index .
New Volkwagen Chief Executive Bernd Pischetsrieder has repeatedly said the firm will match last year's record profit, but the company faces a challenging period as some of its best-selling cars, such as the Golf, begin to show their age.
Rivals such as France's PSA Peugeot Citroen have newer cars on the market in a segment badly hit by weak demand in key markets such as Europe and the United States.
Pischetsrieder is seeking to re-align the company's brands, which include SEAT, Skoda, and Audi, to stop them from competing against each other.
Also buoying VW's stock were comments by many analysts who view it as undervalued compared with its peers. The stock has underperformed the European sector by about eight percent this year.