THE Zimbabwe Stock Exchange industrial index fell yesterday on losses in selected heavyweight counters while the resource shares remained unchanged. After trades, the mainstream index lost 0,4 percent or 0,59 points to 148,05, weighed down by losses in BAT, Econet and Seed Co, that all slipped by a 10 cent margin.

The rest of the market was generally quiet. Daily turnover remained below the US$1 million mark at US$409 845,56. Dairibord and OK Zimbabwe were the most liquid stocks.

BAT was down to US390c on concerns over ongoing investigations into the alleged industrial espionage.

The decline saw its year-to-date gains dropping to just 151,6 percent from its best of 190 percent year-to-date gains when the price reached US450c.

Econet declined to US470c, with buyers dropping their bids to US465c while sellers were asking for US470c.

Seed Co eased to 75c, its lowest level in 52 weeks.

Other notable counters to lose ground were National Foods which went down US0,05c to US132c, PPC which lost US1,01c to US205c and TA Holdings which shed US1c to US9c.

Only four stocks were on the upside. CBZ, which recently announced that plans to launch the MasterCard Prepaid services were at an advanced stage, led the risers with a US0,5c gain to 10c.

Tractive, which is currently trading under a cautionary, added US0,40c to US10,9c while ZPI was US0,05c firmer at US1,17c.

Afre gained a modest US0,10c to US5,2c after recently concluding a US$8,631 million rights offer. Bindura, Falgold, Hwange and RioZim were unchanged.