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Hong Kong - Asian markets largely rose on Thursday and Tokyo hit a fresh 15-year high, driven by dip buying after the previous day's fall, while energy shares gained on higher oil prices.

The Nikkei 225 index added 1.08% to 18 785.79 while the Topix index of all first-section issues gained 0.93% to 1 521.68.

South Korean shares closed 0.13% higher, recovering from morning losses, with the benchmark KOSPI gaining 2.61 points to 1 993.08.

Moving against the regional trend, Sydney dropped 36.41 points to finish at 5 908.5, snapping three straight days of gains.

Hong Kong added 0.5% to close on a one-month high of 24 902.06, led by gains in energy shares, while Shanghai jumped 2.15% on expectations of more monetary easing in China.

Expectations have been building that Chinese authorities will announce more monetary easing ahead of the annual meeting of the National People's Congress, the country's legislature, next week.

"The market was boosted by expectations of more monetary policy easing, ahead of the meeting," Northeast Securities analyst Shen Zhengyang told AFP.

"Investors are usually quite enthusiastic before the Congress."

The Shanghai Composite Index added 69.52 points to close at 3 298.36 on turnover of $54.5bn.

The Shenzhen Composite Index, which tracks stocks on China's second exchange, rose 1.03% to 1 614.71 on turnover of 252.7 billion yuan.

The meeting will set China's annual economic growth target, and has been used in the past as a platform to launch economic reforms.

"There's chatter about more stimulus," said Yen Chiu, a Hong Kong-based trader at Shenwan Hongyuan, Bloomberg News reported. "China is a policy-driven market."

Japanese stocks 'overbought'

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