Asian Shares Fall

Resource and technology shares pulled down Asian markets after China forecast slower economic growth and as tensions surrounding Iran prompted investor caution.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index lost 1.4% to 21265.31 and China's Shanghai Composite fell 0.6% to 2445.00, while Japan's Nikkei Stock Average dropped 0.8% to 9698.59.

In Mumbai, the Sensitive Index fell 1.6% to 17362.87, its lowest close since Feb. 1, ahead of election results from five states, including Uttar Pradesh, the country's most populous, that will be announced Tuesday.

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Elsewhere, Taiwan's Taiex gave up 1.4% to 8004.74, South Korea's Kospi declined 0.9% to 2016.06 and Australia's S&P/ASX 200 index edged down 0.2% to 4263.00.

At China's annual Parliamentary session, or the National People's Congress in Beijing, Premier Wen Jiabao lowered the nation's growth target for 2012 to 7.5% from the 8% expansion target of the last eight years. The annual inflation target was set at 4%. That helped push down commodity plays: Jiangxi Copper and Angang Steel each slid 4%, PetroChina declined 2.7% and Aluminum Corp. of China fell 2.8%, all in Hong Kong.

In Sydney, mining giants BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto dropped 0.8% and 1.3%, respectively.

Property developers fell on mainland exchanged as expectations faded that accommodative measures for selected property loans from China's four big state-owned banks may boost demand. Poly Real Estate Group fell 1.1%.

Banks led declines in India. ICICI Bank fell 3.9% and State Bank of India dropped 3.4%.

In Tokyo, Tokyo Electron gave up 3.5% after the tech major said ahead of the market open that it would buy the solar business of Switzerland's Oerlikon Group.

In Hong Kong, trading in shares of insurance major AIA Group was suspended as American International Group Inc. kicked off a US$6 billion sale of AIA shares.

AIG said the shares will be placed with institutional investors and expects them to be priced by Tuesday. The 1.7 billion shares up for sale represent around 14% of AIA, less than half the 32.9% stake AIG holds, according to a term sheet.

The term sheet, circulated Monday in Hong Kong, said AIG plans to sell the shares at HK$27.15 to HK$27.50 each (US$3.50 to US$3.54), about a 5.8% to 7% discount to AIA's closing price last Friday of HK$29.20, but higher than the Asian insurer's HK$19.68 IPO price back in October 2010.

—Andrew Galbraith and Prudence Ho contributed to this article.

Write to Virginia Harrison at virginia.harrison@dowjones.com