BEIJING - Lock-up shares worth 23.4 billion yuan ($3.8 billion) will become eligible for trade?this week in China.

The volume marks a modest decline from the 29.8 billion yuan worth of lock-up shares released from March 3 to 7, according to the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges.

Altogether, nearly 2.1 billion lock-up shares of 33 listed companies on the two stock exchanges will be unleashed onto the capital market next week, accounting for 0.54 percent of the total lock-up A-shares.

Under Chinese mainland's market rules, major shareholders of non-tradable stocks are subject to one or two years of lock-up before they are permitted to trade.