Munich - Germany's biggest engineering group Siemens AG confirmed Wednesday its business year outlook after reporting a surge in both orders and sales in the company's fiscal third quarter.

The Munich-based group said that new orders jumped by 21 per cent to 23.7 billion euros (37.29 billion) with sales rising by 10 per cent to 19.18 billion euros.

"We shifted Siemens into a higher gear in the third quarter, reaching important milestones on our reorganization path," said Siemens chief Peter Loescher, who took over the running of the company about 12 months ago in the wake of a bribery scandal that rocked the group.

The release of the latest results follow Siemens' restructuring into three key units - industry, energy and healthcare - as well as new moves by the group to face up to the scandal.

On Tuesday Siemens said that it was planning to seek compensation from former top company executives who had failed to tackle the scandal.

The company said that profit for its industry, energy and healthcare units climbed by 33 per cent to 2.084 billion euros.

However, net profit fell 31 per cent at 1.42 billion euros. Siemens booked a one-off gain in the same quarter last year. (dpa)