July 28 (Reuters) - Britain's Croda International Plc reported a 14 percent fall in first-half pretax profit as losses in its industrial specialties division offset growth from its core consumer care business.

The manufacturer of ingredients for cosmetics and personal care products, however, said it was confident of making good progress in the rest of the year, with growth in consumer care sales and profits and improving volumes at industrial specialities.

"While the industrial specialities business has been hit hard by the recession, there are now signs of a recovery in demand. We expect this improvement to continue with a return to profitability in the second half," Chairman Martin Flower said in a statement.

For the half-year ended June, the company posted a pretax profit of 43.6 million pounds ($71.79 million), compared with 50.6 million pounds a year earlier. Revenue fell 3.6 percent to 447.5 million pounds.

The company said its performance was hit by a fall in glycerine prices at industrial specialities although this division broke even in the second quarter and returned to profit in June. The company, whose ingredients are used by such companies as Estee Lauder (EL.N) and Procter & Gamble (PG.N), lifted its interim dividend by 4.8 percent to 6.5 pence.

Croda shares closed at 572.5 pence on Monday 27 July on the London Stock Exchange. ($1=.6073 Pound) (Reporting by Balachander Surianarayanan in Bangalore; Editing by Ratul Ray Chaudhuri)