* Volvo CEO says pace of recovery in EU "gradual"
* Says U.S. makret also hit floor, no signs of upturn yet
* Truck maker due to report Q3 results on Oct. 23
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UMEA, Sweden, Oct 15 (Reuters) - The top executive of world number two truck maker Volvo said on Thursday the European truck market had reached a floor around the start of the third quarter but the pace of recovery was gradual.
Truck makers have seen demand nosedive due to global recession and a credit crunch that has made it difficult for buyers to fund new purchases.
Chief Executive Leif Johansson said conditions in Volvo's largest market were unlikely to worsen from very low levels and were showing signs of a gradual improvement.
"It's time to say we have reached the bottom," he told Reuters on the sidelines of an EU competition meeting in northern Sweden.
"We have bottomed out somewhere in the second and early third quarter, but I think it (the European market) is improving off of terribly low levels," he said, adding that the pace of recovery was "gradual".
Volvo, which sells trucks under brands such as Renault, Nissan Diesel and Mack, last month said that truck deliveries in Europe had fallen 72 percent year-on-year, while they dropped 33 percent in North America.
Johannson said the United States had also reached a floor but that he had not yet seen signs of an upturn in that market.
"It's fair to say we have reached the bottom there too, but we don't see much of an upturn in North America, it's still too early to say," Johansson said.
The Swedish vehicles maker, which reports third-quarter results on Oct. 23, has said it expects the European truck market to halve or worse this year and sees the already weak North American market to dip a further 30 to 40 percent.
Volvo's rival Daimler, the world's biggest truck marker, last week said it saw evidence the U.S. truck market had bottomed but remained cautious about the pace of recovery. (Reporting by Nick Vinocur; Editing by Hans Peters)