Sri Lankan shares closed lower for a fifth straight session on Friday, hurt by losses in industrial and financial stocks.

* At the close of trade, the CSE All-Share index fell 2.7% to 7,817.89

* On Thursday, the country's state minister of finance, Shehan Semasinghe, said the island-nation had postponed a round of debt restructuring talks initially expected to be held during the day.

* This, he added, was to allow central bank and treasury officials to provide clarifications sought by the country's creditors.

* Sri Lanka formally kicked off the talks in September after securing a preliminary $2.9 billion bailout with the International Monetary Fund, a step on a path out of the country's worst financial crisis in a decade.

* But it needs to secure financing assurances from key creditors including China, Japan and India before the funds can be disbursed.

* Further, central bank Governor Nandalal Weerasinghe said in a statement to the parliament on Thursday that inflation would likely be below 4%-5% by the end of next year if the current fiscal policies are maintained.

* Conglomerates Expolanka Holdings PLC and LOLC Development Finance PLC were the top drags, falling 6.95% and 8.45%, respectively.

* Trading volume fell to 49.4 million shares from about 50.1 million in the previous session.

* The equity market's turnover was 1.44 billion Sri Lankan rupees ($3.97 million), compared with 976.7 million rupees in the previous session, according to exchange data.

* Foreign investors were net buyers in the equity market, purchasing stocks worth 97 million rupees, while domestic investors were net sellers, offloading shares worth 1.44 billion rupees, data showed.

* For a report on global markets, click ($1 = 363.0000 Sri Lankan rupees) (Reporting by Ashish Chandra in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)