South African stocks rose more than 1 percent on Friday, capping their best weekly performance in six weeks, as shares of Kumba Iron Ore and other resource firms gained after data from China boosted hopes of greater demand from the country.

Telkom, South Africa's fixed-line operator, was the stand-out stock of the day, rising more than 7 percent at one point after it said it was in talks to sell a 20 percent stake to South Korea's KT Corp.

The $600 million deal could give Telkom, which is struggling to craft a convincing turnaround strategy, a boost in efforts to become a fully converged media company, analysts said.

Telkom has been moving toward a next-generation network infrastructure, which would allow it to become a multimedia player in the market, said Dobek Pater, a telecoms analyst at consultancy Africa Analysis.

Korea Telecom (KT) has been in that position for a while as well, and has obviously progressed along that path further than Telkom has to date.

Shares of Telkom finished up 2.2 percent at 32.85 rand, after earlier rising more than 7 percent.

The Top-40 index of blue-chips rose 1.09 percent to 27,839.76. For the week, it rose 3.1 percent, its best performance since the first week of September.

The broader All-Share index rose 0.9 percent to 31,123.59.

Stocks sensitive to global demand were particularly strong.

Kumba Iron Ore, Africa's largest producer of the steelmaking ingredient, jumped 5.3 percent to 478.18 rand.

Platinum miner Impala Platinum rose 3 percent to 169.51 rand.

Benign inflation data from China eased concerns the government in the world's second-largest economy would further tighten monetary policy.

Volume was thinner, with 142 million shares changing hands on the bourse according to the latest exchange data available at 1500 GMT. That compared to the week's high of 232 million shares on Wednesday.

China Telecoms China South Korea