LONDON (Reuters) - Aviva (AV.L: Quote, Profile, Research), the country's biggest insurer, posted a 7 percent rise in 2005 sales on Tuesday, as strong international life and pensions sales helped overcome continued tough conditions in its domestic market.

Its total life and pensions new business sales rose to 22.2 billion pounds, slightly above the 22.1 billion pounds expected by analysts in a poll conducted by the company.

"Our long-term savings business is flourishing, thanks to our strong international portfolio," Aviva Chief Executive Richard Harvey said in a statement. "We are confident of further growth for Aviva in 2006."

Roman Cizdyn, an analyst at Oriel Securities said: "The figures are quite pleasing. They're at the top end of the range of forecasts. Their statement about being optimistic for the future is quite important too."

Aviva shares had risen 1.6 percent to 739 pence at 11:30 a.m., well ahead of the DJ STOXX pan-European insurance index which was up 0.1 percent.

"They're good numbers, with both the UK and international figures a touch ahead of what people were expecting," said Colin Morton, a fund manager at Rensburg, who owns Aviva stock.

Aviva brings to an end the UK life insurers' sales reporting season, which has seen the big players, including Friends Provident (FP.L: Quote, Profile, Research) and Prudential (PRU.L: Quote, Profile, Research), all deliver strong sales and optimistic outlooks.

"We've seen quite good sales figures from all the UK life insurance stocks. It looks like people are buying savings products once more and the sector seems to be performing relatively well again now after a tough few years," said Morton.

Aviva posted a record year for investment sales in 2005, up 45 percent to 2.4 billion pounds, particularly in the UK, where a 35 percent jump in investment sales helped lift overall sales there as life and pensions sales were hit due to stiff competition among the main firms for new business.

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