China bourses to halt trade for 3 mins of mourning

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China's stock exchanges in Shanghai and Shenzhen and its commodities and futures exchanges in Shanghai, Zhengzhou and Dalian will halt trade for three minutes from 2:28 p.m. (0628 GMT) on Monday to observe a national period of mourning for victims of last week's earthquake.

The three-minute halt will come exactly one week after the quake struck southwest China's Sichuan province, where the death toll stands at nearly 32,500. China says it expects the final figure to exceed 50,000.

China has declared a three-day national period of mourning for the disaster, in which public entertainment will be suspended, flags flown at half-mast and the Olympic torch relay temporarily halted.

The Shanghai Stock Exchange, the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, the Shanghai Futures Exchange, the Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange and the Dalian Commodity Exchange will participate in the three-minute trading halt, the China Securities Regulatory Commission said in a notice on its website.

The Shanghai Gold Exchange will also halt trade during that time, it said in a statement on its website.

An official with the China Foreign Exchange Trade System said it had not received any orders from the central bank on a trading suspension.

(Reporting by Alfred Cang and Helen Ding; Editing by Edmund Klamann)