Supported by robust exports to cover sluggish domestic sales, Nissan Motor Co. Monday reported nonconsolidated pretax profits Monday of 45.36 billion yen, up 46.7 percent from a year earlier, for the first half of the 1997 business year, which ended Sept. 30.

The company also said it would give dividends of 3 yen per share for the term -- its first semiannual dividends in six years.

Net sales increased 2.2 percent to 1.78 trillion yen, and operating profits rose 32.8 percent to 50.51 billion yen in the half-year term, the nation's second-largest automaker said. Although domestic sales dropped 5.8 percent to 493,000 units for the period, Nissan managed to post a 26.3 percent rise in exports to 357,000 units, mainly due to strong demand in the United States, the Middle East and China.

However, the company's auto parts exports to its Thai plants dropped 12 billion yen, due to the economic turmoil this summer, the firm said. Nissan said it reaped about 25 billion yen from restructuring efforts and about 20 billion yen from the depreciation of the yen. It also said it expects to expand domestic market share to 21 percent from the current 20.6 percent by the end of the current business year.

"Since we have already introduced our new models in the first half of the current business year, those models will contribute to our sales increase in the latter half of the year," said Kanemitsu Anraku, Nissan's managing director, explaining the reason for the projected share increase.

For the full year, Nissan projects net sales of 3.7 trillion yen and pretax profits of 100 billion yen.