The French agency that helps the government value its assets, has raised the suggested price tag for the licence to 240 million euros from the 206 million announced by the government in February "The price seems to us relevant and fair," Maugest added. We are looking at it very closely....We are looking at it in a very favourable manner," Virgin Mobile Secretary General Philippe Maugest told a telecoms conference. France PARIS, July 2 (Reuters) - Virgin Mobile is still in talks with various potential partners including cable operator Numericable and has yet to decide whether it will bid for the fourth French 3G mobile phone licence, a senior company official said on Thursday "We are looking at the dossier. The survey also said spectrum for 3G wireless technologyshould also be made freely tradable and capital gains onspectrum should be taxed under the Income tax Act. (Reporting by Devidutta Tripathy; Editing by RanjitGangadharan).

Thegovernment has contractual obligation to give them spectrum upto 6.2 MHz as their subscriber base grows. Under the existing policy, companies get 4.4 MHz as startup spectrum when they acquire a telecoms licence. Scarcity of 2G spectrum in the world's fastest-growingwireless market has been a major roadblock in mobile firms'expansion and has hit quality of services. High prices fetchedfrom recent stake sales in private telecoms has also raisedseveral eyebrows regarding the valuation of spectrum. "Spectrum should be auctioned and be freely tradable amongcompanies having a telecom licence," the economic survey said.

"The auction price can be in the form of a fixed price orcharge per unit of bandwidth per annum or a combination of thetwo," it said. The suggestion in an economic survey presented toparliament ahead of Monday's budget comes as India is gearingup for auctioning third-generation (3G) radio spectrum. The 2G spectrum is free with a telecoms licence andoperators have to pay an annual fee for using it and firms arenot allowed to buy or sell spectrum. (Reporting by Tenzin Pema in Bangalore; Editing by GregMahlich) Stocks. NEW DELHI, July 2 (Reuters) - India should auction 2Gspectrum and allow this to be traded rather than give holdersof telecoms licences entitlement to the radio waves as is thecurrent practice, the government said on Thursday.