SYDNEY/WELLINGTON: Australian shares rose to one-week highs on Wednesday, lifted by robust gains on mining stocks and a 5% surge on telecoms provider Telstra which announced a $2 billion-plus decision to sell its mobile towers business.

The S&P/ASX 200 index rose 0.16% to close at 7,313 points, having risen as high as 7,370 points earlier in the day. The index is up 11% so far in the first half of 2021, compared with an 8% fall in the same year-ago period.

Australia’s biggest telecom firm Telstra scaled a 16-1/2-month high after it announced plans to sell nearly half of its mobile tower business for A$2.8 billion ($2.11 billion).

Mineral sands producer Iluka Resources Ltd, seen as one of the prime beneficiaries of Rio Tinto’s decision to halt mining at its Richards Bay project in South Africa, jumped to the highest since April 2012. It was the top gainer on the benchmark, posting its biggest one-day gain since early-2016

But with iron ore prices set for a seventh straight quarterly gain, shares of Rio Tinto rose more than 2% to a three-week high, pushing miners 0.94% higher. Sector heavyweight BHP Group Ltd soared 1.6%. Across the Tasman Sea, New Zealand’s benchmark S&P/NZX 50 index rose 0.1% to 12654.6.