Asian stocks traded lower on Thursday, following a weak lead from Wall Street, and as China set its gross domestic product (GDP) growth target at 7 percent for 2015 .
This will be the mainland's lowest growth target in 11 years, according to a speech by premier Li Keqiang at the annual National People's Congress (NPC), down from 7.5 percent last year - a sign of the government's increased focus on quality over quantity as it seeks to overhaul the country's growth model.
"I think the government doesn't want to come out and say that they are expecting 6 percent growth so they say about 7 percent, but they are clearly playing catch-up," Fraser Howie, managing director at Newedge Singapore, told CNBC's " Street Signs Asia ." "You will see more stimulus measures of various forms, which can be quite positive for the markets as you see more liquidity in the markets."
Overnight, U.S. stocks closed lower amid a series of economic data that continued to show moderate growth ahead of Friday's nonfarm payrolls report. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 0.6 percent, while the S&P 500 finished 0.4 percent lower. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite shed 0.3 percent.
Mainland indices down
China's Shanghai Composite index dropped 1 percent to hit a one-week low as blue-chip stocks like the property developers and financials fell.
Bank of Communications (Shanghai Stock Exchange: 1328-SZ) and Bank of China (Shanghai Stock Exchange: 1988-SZ) led losses within the banking sector, down over 2 percent each, while Poly Real Estate (Shanghai Stock Exchange: 48-SZ) and China Vanke (:Z2-CN) retreated 2.8 and 1.7 percent each.
Environment-related plays bucked the downtrend as the NPC seeks to clampdown on China's pollution woes; Chongqing Water Group advanced 0.7 percent, while Heilongjiang Interchina Water Treatment and Beijing Capital Group added 0.2 percent each.
In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index sagged 0.6 percent to a three-week low. Focus was on Standard Chartered, which announced a 37 percent slump in 2014's net profit. Shares in Hong Kong rallied 3.4 percent following a surge in its London-listed stock on Wednesday.
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Nikkei up 0.1%
Japan's Nikkei 225 index recouped losses as the dollar-yen inched up to 119.81. As a result, blue-chip exporters turned broadly higher; Mitsubishi Electric (Tokyo Stock Exchange: 6503.T-JP), Canon (Tokyo Stock Exchange: 7751.T-JP) and Sony gained between 0.2 to 0.9 percent, while Toyota Motor and Toshiba (Tokyo Stock Exchange: 6502.T-JP) held on to modest losses of 0.8 and 0.6 percent.