BoJ Minutes On Tap For Friday

(RTTNews) - The Bank of Japan will on Friday release the minutes from its monetary policy meeting on December 18-19, highlighting a modest day for Asia-Pacific economic activity.

At the meeting, the BoJ board members unanimously decided to maintain a negative interest rate of 0.1 percent on current accounts that financial institutions maintain at the central bank. The bank also decided to regard the upper bound of 1.0 percent for 10-year JGB yields.

Japan also will see January results for Tokyo inflation and December data for its leading index and producer prices.

In December, overall Tokyo inflation was up 2.4 percent on year, while core CPI rose an annual 2.1 percent. In November, the leading index had a score of 108.9, while producer prices were up an annual 2.3 percent.

Singapore will provide December data for industrial production, with forecasts suggesting an increase of 1.9 percent on month and 1.0 percent on year. That follows the 7.8 percent monthly decline and the 1.0 percent yearly gain in November.

Finally, the markets in Australia are closed on Friday for Australia Day and will re-open on Monday.