By Ernest Scheyder

WILMINGTON, Del. (Reuters) - DuPont, whichmakes products in a wide range of industries such as chemicals,biotechnology and agriculture, is not seeing evidence of adouble-dip recession, executives said Tuesday.

"In the aggregate, we're seeing slow, sequentialimprovement," said Chief Executive Officer Ellen Kullman."We're watching it very closely."

While some economic indicators point to weak consumerconfidence, DuPont is not seeing a slowdown in its own orders,Kullman and other executives said.

"From a business standpoint, we're just not seeing" adouble-dip recession, said Chief Financial Officer NickFanandakis.

Elsewhere, Kullman said DuPont will soon increase hiring inNorth America, depending on local needs.

Part of the hiring will come as the older work force in theregion retires. DuPont has a well-established pension systemfor employees, so the company's retirement rate did not dipduring the recession, Kullman said.

Shares of DuPont, based in Wilmington, Delaware, rose 18cents to $42.98 in afternoon trading. (Reporting by Ernest Scheyder; editing by Gunna Dickson)