The foreign investment regulator of India has delayed a decision on Vodafone plans to buy controlling stake of Hutchison Telecom in Hutchison Essar. After a meeting of the Foreign Investment Promotion Board, Finance Secretary Ashok Jha said that the board had asked for more details on the deal.

Trade Minister Kamal Nath admitted on Friday that Indian import duties on wines and spirits are high and added he expects the situation to be corrected. The European Union is escalating a dispute with India at the World Trade Organisation, over what it sees as unfair trade barriers for its wine and spirits.

Trading highlights

Indiabulls Real Estate was the most-active stock with a turnover of Rs 174.55 crore followed by Renuka Sugar and Reliance Industries.

Advancers

Dr.Reddy\''\''s rallied 3.1% to Rs 728 and the other pharma large-caps Ranbaxy Laboratories edged up 2.1% to Rs 353. NTPC surged 3% Rs 150, respectively and ITC soared 2.5% to Rs 150. NTPC announced it had signed an agreement with KFW, Germany, for a term-loan of $100 million. The loan agreement, which state-run NTPC signed, is an unsecured facility without sovereign guarantee bearing variable interest linked to LIBOR, and has a maturity of 10 years.

Tata Motors rose 1.8% to Rs 728. Tata Motors plans to set up one more automobile plant in the country within two years. Gujarat Ambuja, Tata Steel and Satyam rallied around 2% each to Rs 107, Rs 450 and Rs 470, respectively. Index heavyReliance Industries advanced 1.22% to Rs 1,372.60, as 5.66 lakh shares were traded on BSE. The stock hit a high of Rs 1,373.50.

Decliners

It stocks were heavily hit by the rise of the rupee this week. The rupee touched a seven-year high against the dollar. IT large-cap Wipro led the decliners, down 1.3% to Rs 558, on a volume of 2.16 lakh shares.

Other declineers included HDFC, down 1% to Rs 1,520, TCS, dipping 1.3% to Rs 1,231 and BHEL, losing 0.8% to Rs 2,261.

6:30AM European stocks were lower on Friday on financials and telecom stocks.

European markets were lower on Friday. By mid morning, Frankfurt Xetra Dax was fractionally lower at 6,893.94, the CAC 40 in Paris fell 0.2% to 5,618.07 and London FTSE 100 shed 0.3% to 6,303.5.

Advancers

German financial stocks advnaced on takeover speculation on comments from Citigroup earlier in the week that hinted the US bank was looking possible targets in Germany. Commerzbank gained 2.8%, while Deutsche Bank added 1%, and Deutsche Postbank climbed 1.6%.

Decliners

Britain Vodafone led telecommunications stocks down as it warned of tough competition and regulatory pressures through to 2008. The stock fell 3.3%. Telekom Austria fell 1.9% after Bear Stearns lowered its target price. Shares in Telenor fell 1.4%.

Oil and gold

Oil prices kept rallying Friday as a standoff between Britain and Iran was taken to the United Nations and a nervous market worried that oil exports could be affected by the crisis. After settling at a six-month high a day earlier, crude oil futures rose another 45 cents to $66.48 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Gold opened Friday at a bid price of $662.90 a troy ounce, up from $658.70 late Thursday.

Currencies