A sharp drop in the share prices of two Chinese banks dragged down China's Shanghai Stock Exchange which finished the week off 1.26 percent.

The shares of both the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and the Bank of China fell by 10 percent, the maximum allowable daily limit on Friday. The decline caused the Shanghai Composite Stock Index to lose 1.28 percent on Friday to close at 2641.33 points.

The Shenzhen Component Index rose 0.89 percent on Friday.The value of two China's two stock markets value totaled around 8.88 trillion yuan (about 1.14 trillion U.S. dollars) by Friday, down 0.58 percent over last week.

The Shanghai Stock Exchange reported a market value of 7.07 trillion yuan (906.5 billion U.S. dollars) on Friday. The Shenzhen Stock Exchange rose 2.17 percent to about 1.81 trillion yuan (233 billion U.S. dollars).

The first week of 2007, which had only two trading days due to the New Year holidays, saw record-high trading volume on the two markets.

Source: Xinhua