Chinese share prices down at midday

Special Report:Global Financial Crisis

BEIJING, Dec. 22 (Chinese media) -- Chinese equities ended Monday's morning session lower, despite weekend announcement of detailed measures to boost real estate market and of 10 measures to fortify economic ties across the Taiwan Straits.

The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index lost 36.28 points, or 1.80 percent, to 1,982.18. Shenzhen Component Index on the smaller Shenzhen Stock Exchange went down 141.95 points, or 1.91 percent to 7,296.88.

Combined turnover was 50.21 billion yuan (7.34 billion U.S. dollars), down from the 54.7 billion yuan for the morning session of last Friday. Gains dwarfed by losses by 218 to 635 in Shanghai and 283 to 441 in Shenzhen.

Heavyweigts led the downward trend.

The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China fell 1.57 percent to 3.76 yuan, the Bank of China lost 1.26 percent to 3.13 yuan, China Life went down 3.92 percent to 20.37 yuan, China Ping An down 4.22 percent to 29.06 yuan, PetroChina down 1.90 percent to 10.87 yuan and Sinopec down 3.15 percent to 7.69 yuan.

However, stimulated by government plan to issue third-generation (3G) telecommmunications operation licenses in the near future, 3G-related shares performed well against the dim landscape.

China Unicom gained 1.26 percent to 5.63 yuan, Zhongxing Telecom went up 4.71 percent to 28.69 yuan, Allwin Telecom up 9.41percent to 7.79 yuan, and Beiwei Telecom up 6.49 percent to 14.61 yuan.