1st LD-Writethru: China stocks close lower Thursday

Chinese shares extended losses on Thursday with concerns of tighter government regulation of the stock market.

The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index went down 1.31 percent to end at 3,262.30 points, while the Shenzhen Component Index fell 0.93 percent to end at 11,249.04 points.

Total turnover on the two bourses came in at 528.9 billion yuan (86.2 billion U.S. dollars).

Fearing that its plan to inspect stock margin trading by 46 companies could cause a sell-off similar to the one seen on the stock market two weeks ago, China's securities regulator said on Wednesday that such a move was ordinary regular supervision and should not be over-interpreted.

China's State Council, the cabinet, on Wednesday announced plans to push exports of advanced railway, nuclear power and building material products.

The power sector led gains by growing 2.38 percent, with Shanghai Electric Power Co., Ltd., Jilin Power Share Co., Ltd. and other two counterparts rising by the daily limit of 10 percent.

Banking and securities traders continued their losses. Guoyuan Securities went down 4.09 percent to close at 31.65 yuan per share, while Bank of China gave up 3.30 percent to end at 4.4 yuan.

Gao Xiang, an analyst with CITIC Securities, said the fluctuation is due to excessive panic at the regulator's inspection and to worries of depreciating Chinese yuan and ensuing capital outflows.

Speculations of a new round of IPOs to be launched next week also ruffled market sentiment, Gao added. Endi