Asian markets ended sharply lower for the day and the week on Friday as fears over a U.S. recession as well as a global demand slowdown triggered selling on a broad scale.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 index lost 216.62 points or 1.94% to close at 10,938.14 while the benchmark Hang Seng Index closed down 528.71 points at 17,682.40, taking losses for the week to 5.4%.
Among exporters, construction machinery manufacturer Komatsu plunged 8.1%, Canon fell 4.1%, top automaker Toyota Motor dropped 5.3%, and electronics giant Sony slipped 0.3%. Nippon Steel, which is often swayed by the state of the economy, shed 3.1%.
In the banking space, Mitsubishi UFJ lost 2.4%. The company denied a report that it plans to merge its brokerage units in Japan with a local subsidiary of Morgan Stanley. Meanwhile, Mizuho Financial eased 0.9% and Sumitomo Mitsui declined 1.7%. Top brokerage Nomura Holdings slipped 0.2%.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries plunged 4.4% despite winning an order to build a driverless people mover system at Miami International Airport for about 27.4 billion yen.
In the tech sector, Advantest declined 2.2%, Fujitsu lost 0.3%, Fanuc dropped 2.1% and Kyocera plummeted 3.4%. Among oil-related stocks, Inpex Holdings tumbled 5.8%, Nippon Oil gave away 5.0% and Nippon Mining Holding shed 6.0%.
Bucking the trend, Nippon Suisan edged up 0.3% and Aeon climbed 3.3% after the supermarket operator opened Aeon LakeTown, one of Japan's largest shopping centers, on Thursday in Saitama Prefecture.
Elsewhere:
Singapore's Straight Times Index shed 66.5 points or 2.8% to finish the session at 2,297.
Malaysia's Kuala Lumpur Composite Index dropped 2 points or 0.2% to close at 1,016.
Taiwan's Taiex added 0.7% to 5,742.23.
New Zealand's NZX 50 index shed 2.5% to 3,151.54.
Australia's S&P/ASX 200 index dropped 1.4% to 4,695.40.
with files from other wire services
