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Energy, travel stocks drag FTSE 100 downBy Reuters

By Shivani Kumaresan

(Reuters) - London's FTSE 100 slipped on Monday, weighed down by falls in energy and travel stocks, while tighter restrictions on businesses led to concerns about the near-term impact on the economy.

The blue-chip FTSE 100 index slipped 0.2% in listless trading across Europe, while the domestically focussed mid-cap FTSE 250 index rose 0.1%.

Energy majors BP and Royal Dutch Shell were the biggest drag on the index as oil prices slid on fears over soaring COVID-19 cases around the world and the slow pace of vaccinations against the virus.

Travel and leisure stocks, including British Airways-owner IAG, EasyJet and Intercontinental Hotels, shed between 0.8% and 1.9% as all travellers to Britain must have a recent negative COVID-19 test and be prepared to quarantine at home for 10 days on arrival.

"Lacking a U.S. intervention, broadly unimpressed with China's Q4 GDP rebound due to a drop in retail sales, and anxious about how Wednesday's inauguration is going to play out across the States, the European indices dozed through the session," wrote Connor Campbell, a financial analyst at Spreadex.

The FTSE 100 fell 2% last week after a rally fuelled by Brexit optimism, as investors were worried that more stringent restrictions to curb coronavirus infections might derail prospects of a swift economic recovery.

Meanwhile, Britain's vaccine deployment minister, Nadhim Zahawi, raised concerns about vaccine supply, saying that the rollout was limited by "lumpy" manufacturing and that Pfizer's changes to its production could lead to a brief supply disruption.

Among individual stocks, drugmaker AstraZeneca rose 0.9% after saying its breast cancer drug received approval as a treatment for a certain type of advanced gastric cancer in the United States.

Energy services company Centrica Plc lost 2.2% after it said its chief financial officer, Johnathan Ford, would step down on Jan. 31.

(Reporting by Shivani Kumaresan in Bengaluru; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)