IT drags Sri Lankan shares to settle lower

April 11 (Reuters) - Sri Lankan shares closed lower on Friday, dragged down by losses in information technology stocks.

The CSE All-Share index .CSE settled 0.35% down at 15,526.2 on Friday, but marked a weekly gain after two weeks of losses.

Nuwara Eliya Hotels Co NEH.CM and Sathosa Motors SMOT.CM were the top losers by index points, down 21.2 points and 11.3 points, respectively on the day.

The International Monetary Fund said on Friday that discussions with Sri Lanka will continue towards reaching an agreement in the near term on the fourth review of its $2.9 billion programme, after a staff team visited the island nation.

Trading volume on the index fell to 42.1 million shares from 212.2 million shares in the previous session.

The equity market's turnover fell to 1.59 billion Sri Lankan rupees from 6.98 billion rupees in the previous session, according to exchange data.

Foreign investors were net sellers, offloading stocks worth 84.3 million rupees, while domestic investors were net buyers, purchasing shares worth 1.5 billion rupees, the data showed.

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($1 = 297.0000 Sri Lankan rupees)