Chinese shares have fallen by more than 8.5 percent - this comes weeks after a period of mass-government intervention helped the market to avoid a total collapse.

The Shenzhen index dropped by 8.6 percent, to 3,818.73, while the Shanghai Composite Index went down by 8.5 percent, to 3,725.56 points.

This market volatility is set against a broader slowdown in the Chinese economy.

Today's falls are thought to have been provoked by the release of lacklustre results from Chinese industrial firms, and disappointing data from a survey of private factories which was released on Friday - but these figures do not explain the scale of the downturn.

Losses on Chinese stock markets during the recent spell of volatility have at times ran as high as $3.2 trillion - that's 13 times the size of the Greek economy.

It's estimated that between 15 and 20 percent of household wealth in China is tied up in the market - only 1.5 percent of the shares on the Chinese market are owned by foreign investors.