Selling frenzy drove Chinese shares further down Tuesday after a major slump in the previous trading day, with blue chips leading the way.

The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index closed the morning session at 3,462.52 points, down 207.88 points, or 5.66 percent lower.

The decline rate was more than half of the 8.26 percent level recorded for the whole Monday.

The index, which tracks both yuan-denominated A-shares and foreign currency-denominated B-shares listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, closed at 3,670.4 points on Monday, down 8.26 percent from last Friday.

The index had a cumulative fall of over 15 percent since the bourse struck a high point of 4,335.18 points on May 29.

Some analysts said Tuesday's plummeting was owed largely to panic-stricken sellers, who saw most of stocks falling to the daily limit of 10 percent for four consecutive days.

The continuous bearishness followed the government policy of tripling stamp tax on stock trading from 0.1 percent to 0.3 percent last week. It was believed to targeting at the speculative bubble on China's equity markets.

However, some market observers held, despite the big-margin corrections, the markets, particularly A-share markets, would come back to a bullish run in a longer term, as major factors behind market performance, including yuan's appreciation and impressive operation of A-share companies, would remain largely unchanged for the rest of the year.

The Component Index on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange ended Tuesday's morning session at 10,886.51 points, down 581.95 points, or 5.07 percent, from Monday closing at 11,468.46 points.

Heavyweights contributed to the slump.

Bank of China went down 3.33 percent to 4.93 yuan, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, down 3.21 percent to 4.83 yuan, and China Life, the top life insurer in the country, down 2.83 percent to 33 yuan. Sinopec, China's biggest oil refiner, drove the overall index down by some 24 points.

(Xinhua News Agency June 5, 2007)