The Shanghai Composite Index, which covers both A- and B-shares listed on the Shanghai bourse, fell 14.70 points at 2,930.56 on a turnover of 89.47 billion yuan (US$11.5 billion).

The composite index on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange dropped 1.17 percent to close at 8,262.33 points on a turnover of 43.155 billion yuan.

Dealers said the government will probably take further macro-control measures including interest rate hike after the economy grew at its fastest rate in more than a decade in 2006.

China's Consumer Price Index (CPI), a major inflation indicator, rose by 2.8 percent last December, much higher than the average level of 1.5 percent throughout 2006, according to latest figures from the National Bureau of Statistics.

This makes interest rate rise imminent, analysts said.

Property shares fell after the central bank governor, Zhou Xiaochuan, was cited by the Shanghai Securities News as saying the central bank is closely watching property prices.

China Merchants Property Development plunged by the daily 10 percent limit to 24.26 yuan. The heavy-weighted Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the China Life Insurance, and the Bank of China fell 2.82 percent, 1.91 percent and 0.8 percent.

China's stock markets risk disruptions from record turnover and growing volatility, the Shanghai Stock Exchange warned.

"We must pay close attention to risks in the market, chiefly whether the technology system and trading platform can handle such large trading volumes," Geng Liang, chief of the exchange, said in a statement Tuesday.

Trading volumes in Shanghai have soared since the beginning of the year, with turnover in the first two weeks at 1.2 trillion yuan compared with 6 trillion yuan for all of 2006, said the statement, posted on the website of the exchange.

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