Britain's blue-chip index snapped a four-day losing streak on Monday as speculation about new monetary stimulus from China boosted heavyweight basic resources stocks.

Industrial metals and mining shares rose 2.1 percent and 1.6 percent, after weak manufacturing data from China, the world's largest consumer of raw materials, raised expectations that Beijing would act to revive its economy. <.FTNMX1750> <.

"I probably envisage monetary rather than fiscal measures," Bhaven Patel, senior Trader at Accendo Markets

"Looking at Rio Tinto as a benchmark, only recently it hit a two-year low and we may be looking to an upside of 5 to 10 percent."

Shares in miner Rio Tinto gained 2.2 percent by 1044 GMT, while Mexican miner Fresnillo was up 4.8 percent and India-focused miner Vedanta rose 3.9 percent.

Shares in the UK mining sector have fallen around 20 percent since early August on the back of a largely lacklustre batch of trading updates, which showed that second-quarter earnings fell on average by 44 percent due to the decline in demand from China.

The FTSE 100 <.FTSE> was up 35.83 points, or 0.6 percent, to 5,747.22, having shed 2.6 percent over the previous eight trading days, although volumes were low at 16.6 percent of the full-day average with the U.S. stock market closed for the Labor Day holiday.

Commodity trader Glencore was down 0.8 percent in volume 111 percent of the average, as investors bet the firm would eventually have to increase its bid for miner Xstrata , up 0.6 percent, to clinch a proposed acquisition.

"All the guys that are playing this deal are going long Xstrata, short Glencore," an event-driven market analyst said.

"(Glencore) didn't pursue this since February so that they could walk away. We think the deal will go through but only after (CEO Ivan) Glasenberg does provide some sort of small, eleventh hour bumper to the deal terms. I do think it happens this week."

Qatar, an Xstrata shareholder, recently said it would vote against the bid at current terms and other investors have indicated they will follow suit.

Arm Holdings was another notable underperformer, down 2.4 percent, weighed by a Deutsche Bank rating downgrade and an article in the Financial Times saying the group is cutting back recruitment on fears of a sales slowdown in the second half of the year.

(Additional reporting by David Brett and Simon Jessop; Editing by Ruth Pitchford)