Chinese stocks nosedived nearly five per cent Thursday amid fears of an interest rate hike to curb the overheating economy and inflation.

The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index, the most widely watched indicator of the mainland's stock market, lost 4.52 per cent to end at 3,449.01.

China's gross domestic product surged 11.1 per cent year-on-year, a 0.7 percentage point faster than the same period last year, the National Bureau of Statistics said Thursday.

The Consumer Price Index, a barometer of inflation, registered a 3.3 per cent year-on-year growth, up from 2.7 per cent in February and higher than the central bank's target of three per cent for the year, according to the bureau.

Several days after the inflation data was released last month, the central bank raised the interest rate.

Meanwhile, the Shenzhen Composite Index fell 4.92 per cent to 960.02, while the Shanghai and Shenzhen 300 Index of major companies went down 4.67 per cent to 3,150.30.

The property sector led the decline, with more than 70 per cent of the stocks falling more than five per cent. China Vanke, the country's biggest publicly traded property developer, declined 7.04 per cent to close at 17.44 yuan per share, while Poly China fell to the daily limit of 10 per cent to 31.49 yuan.

Blue chips continued the downward trend. China Life, the country's biggest life insurer, lost 3.06 per cent to 35.46 yuan following a fall of 3.48 per cent the previous day, while its rival Ping An Insurance slid 3.58 per cent to 51.98 yuan, when it slid down 2.25 per cent on Wednesday.

China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation (Sinopec), Asia's largest refiner, dipped 5.44 per cent to 10.78 yuan, and China United Telecom was also down 5.37 percent to 5.29 yuan.

The declines far outnumbered the advances by a ratio of 15 to 2 in the Shanghai Stock Exchange and by 10 to 1 in Shenzhen.