Chinese shares plunge another 8% despite more measures

Mainland Chinese shares continued to plunge on Wednesday, falling over 8% at one point despite more moves by regulators to stabilise the market.

The Shanghai Composite was down 5.9% to 3,506.22 in early trade.

That came despite the insurance regulator raising the limits for insurers to invest in blue chip stocks to 10% of their total assets, from 5%.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng index was down 5.1% to 23,710.97, following the mainland's fall.

The country's securities regulator said on Wednesday that its state-backed margin finance firm will provide adequate liquidity for brokerages to try to ease the "panic sentiment" in the market.

Greece worriesThe rest of Asia was lower as investors remained cautious about the uncertainty over Greece's position in the eurozone and the lack of a resolution to the debt crisis.

Eurozone leaders have given Greece until the end of the week to come up with a proposal for sweeping reforms in return for loans that will keep it from crashing out of the eurozone.

Japan's Nikkei 225 index was down 1.5% to 20,062.19.


Investors ignored data that showed that Japan recorded its second highest monthly current account surplus in the past five years in May, beating expectations.

The current account - a wide measure of trade - saw a surplus of 1.88tn yen ($15.3bn:£9.9bn) in May. That marks the eleventh consecutive surplus on a boost from a weaker yen.

In Australia, shares were lower as the price of a top exporter, iron ore, fell almost 6% to a three month low.

The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index was down 1.2% to 5,515.90 in early trade.

Shares of mining heavyweights BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto weighed on the index, down 1.7% and 1.9% respectively.

South Korea's Kospi index was lower by 0.3% to 2,033.62 as investors looked forward to the central bank's decision on interest rates on Thursday.

The Bank of Korea is widely expected to keep interest rates on hold after cutting them last month to boost the economy from the outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (Mers).