Chinese shares closed lower on Tuesday due to shrinking profits of industrial firms and lackluster performance in major Asian markets.
The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index shed 2.02 percent to end at 3,038.14 points. The smaller Shenzhen Component Index lost 1.64 percent to close at 9,949.92 points.
Total turnover on the two bourses came in 420.9 billion yuan (66.12 billion U.S. dollars), up from 404.4 billion yuan on the previous trading day.
The decline was attributable to a year-on-year fall of 8.8 percent in the profits of China's major industrial firms in August, which widened from a 2.9-percent decline in July, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Monday.
Chinese shares were also weighed on by other Asian markets where huge sell-offs punched major indices down, including Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index, the S&P/ASX200 index in the Australian market and Japan's 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average.
Companies related to coal, cement and aircraft manufacturing were among the biggest losers, while less than 15 percent of companies traded on the A-share market saw their share prices up.
The ChiNext Index, which tracks China's NASDAQ-style board of growth enterprises, slipped 1.12 percent to close at 2,098.57 points.
