Updates to market close

SHANGHAI, April 17 (Reuters) - Hong Kong shares closed higher on Thursday, led by property and tech stocks, while investors awaited more cues from ongoing trade tensions between the U.S. and China.

Chinese equities were broadly steady.

** Hong Kong benchmark Hang Seng .HSI ended higher by 1.6%. China's blue-chip CSI 300 Index .CSI300 closed roughly flat, while the Shanghai Composite Index .SSEC inched up 0.1%.

** Property shares traded onshore .CSI000952 and offshore .HSMPI surged as much as 4% each, after China's premier urged unlocking real estate market potential and new home prices stabilised in March.

** Tech majors traded in Hong Kong .HSTECH rose 1.9%, reversing some losses from the previous day after the United States restricted Nvidia NVDA.O chip sales to China.

** China will pay no attention if the U.S. continues to play the "tariff numbers game", China's foreign ministry said on Thursday, after the White House outlined how the Asian country faces tariffs of up to 245% due to its retaliatory actions.

** "U.S. and China are stuck in an unprecedented, and expensive, game of chicken, and it seems both sides are unwilling to back down," said Ting Lu, chief China economist at Nomura.

** "We expect tensions between these two mega economies to worsen significantly, especially as China has been making large strides in high-tech sectors, including AI and robotics," Lu said.

** China's semiconductor shares .CSIH30184 were up 0.5%, as Taiwan's TSMC 2330.TW, the world's largest contract chipmaker, logged a forecast-beating 60% leap in quarterly profit.

** Chip giant SMIC 0981.HK rose 1.3%.

** Investors are also awaiting a press conference scheduled for Monday, where regulators are expected to outline their plan for "expanding opening-up of the service-sector".

(Reporting by Shanghai Newsroom; Editing by Varun H K and Sonia Cheema)

((li.gu@tr.com))