File photo:  VCG

BEIJING, Dec. 23 (Xinhua) -- Chinese stocks closed lower on Monday, with the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index down 1.4 percent at 2,962.75 points.

The Shenzhen Component Index closed 1.69 percent lower at 10,056.21 points.

The combined turnover of stocks covered by the two indices stood at 537.21 billion yuan (about 76.6 billion U.S. dollars), shrinking from 570.58 billion yuan in the previous trading day.

Losers outnumbered winners by 1,305 to 168 on the Shanghai bourse and by 1,877 to 272 on the Shenzhen bourse.

Bucking the declining trend, shares of companies manufacturing instruments and apparatuses posted strong performance, with shares of Nanhua Instruments Co., Ltd. surging by the daily limit of 10 percent.

Shares of companies related to semiconductor and husbandry led the losses.

The ChiNext Index, China's Nasdaq-style board of growth enterprises, lost 1.98 percent to close at 1,736.62 points Monday.