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FTSE 100 cloese higher on Wednesday

Xinhua, April 2, 2015 Adjust font size:

FTSE 100 Index, British benchmark stock market gauge, Wednesday increased by 0.54 percent, or 36.46 points, to 6,809.50 points.

The index increased as manufacturing purchasing managers' indices (PMIs) from Britain, Europe and China all showed an improvement in March.

British manufacturing purchasing managers' index (PMI), a gauge of the industry activities, edged up to 54.4 in March 2015 from the revised 54.0 in February 2015, said Markit Economics Limited Wednesday.

Final Eurozone manufacturing PMI also increased to 52.2 in March, up from 51.0 in February, data from Markit showed.

Besides, Chinese manufacturing bounced back into expansion territory in March. The manufacturing PMI posted at 50.1 in March, up from 49.9 in February, according to the China National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and the logistics and purchasing federation.

Imperial Tobacco Group's share price increased by 2.77 percent, topped the gainers of the blue chips. Barclays, BG Group, Fresnillo and Randgold Resources increased by 2.76 percent, 2.70 percent, 2.56 percent and 2.30 percent respectively.

Kingfisher led the top losers of the blue chips with a share price drop of 3.31 percent, followed by Shire (1.96 percent), Barratt Developments (1.42 percent), WPP (1.18 percent) and Carnival (1.15 percent).

The index has gained 4.91 percent so far this year when measured in U.S. dollar. Endit