Asia stocks slid on Monday with exporters such as carmaker Honda tumbling on growing U.S. recession fears.

Worries about the economy kept the dollar within striking distance of a near three-year low against the yen. Japanese exporters are being badly bruised by the

rising yen.

Japan's Nikkei ended 3.9 percent lower (at 13,326), its lowest level in more than 2 years.

Hong Kong shares were also down by the midday recess, and finally ended trading 5.5 percent lower.

Bank of China was among the worst performers due to talk that the institution will announce a significant write down of its failed investments in U.S.

subprime mortgage securities in the fourth quarter.

Martin Hennecke of investment firm Tyche says that while subprime is a problem for markets, the worst is yet to come.

[Martin Hennecke, Senior Manager, Private Clients, Tyche]:

"What investors need to understand, it's not just about subprime and mortgages it's really a big crisis of debt on all levels, even government debt hitting the West now and that's very significant. In our view, it's just getting started and it will really develop into a very, very severe recession, maybe a real depression of the style we saw in 1929."

Korean shares were also hit badly by recession worries, with the KOSPI losing almost 3 percent.