Taiwan's share prices closed lower Tuesday, with the weighted index, the market's key barometer, moving down 66.12 points, or 0.94 percent, to close at 6,964.6, according to news reaching Hong Kong from Taipei.

Suffering a drop from gains of the previous day, the local bourse opened at 6,945.14 and fluctuated between 6,980.85 and 6,917.31. A total of 2.54 billion shares changed hands on a market turnover of 59.7 billion new Taiwan dollars (1.89 billion US dollars).

The five other major stock categories lost ground, with cement stocks moving down the most at 2.9 percent. Textile stocks declined 2.7 percent, plastics and chemicals shares dropped 1.8 percent, foodstuff issues fell 1.4 percent, banking and financial shares lost 1.2 percent, construction issues shed 1.1 percent, machinery and electronics shares were down 0.3 percent, and paper and pulp issues lost 0.1 percent.

Losers outnumbered gainers 1,414 to 598, with 445 stocks remaining unchanged.

(Xinhua News Agency August 27, 2008)