MUMBAI (Reuters) - India, the world's biggest buyer of bullion, will stop futures trading in precious, base metals and energy futures on Saturdays with immediate effect, in line with global practices, a move that could hurt already sagging volumes at the Multi Commodity Exchange.

However, trading in futures of agricultural commodities will continue on Saturdays for now and will be reviewed after three months, the Forward Markets Commission, which regulates commodity futures exchanges, said in a statement.

The move could further dent volumes, which are already down due to the imposition of the commodity transaction tax from July, and higher margins.

"Already volumes had been falling from July on MCX. With today's announcement we might see a further fall. Retail traders may opt to close their positions on Friday itself," said Sumit Mukherjee, an analyst with Karvy Comtrade in Hyderabad.

MCX recorded an average volume of 20.15 billion rupees on Saturdays from July to September, about 7 percent of the daily weekday volume of 269.72 billion rupees, data from the exchange showed.

(Reporting by Siddesh Mayenkar; Editing by Anupama Dwivedi)