VENTURE CAPITAL POST

The Bank of Japan is set to maintain its massive stimulus program on Tuesday and signal its conviction that a steady economic recovery will help achieve its ambitious price target without immediate, additional monetary easing.

Japanese households cut spending further and retail sales fell for the first time in seven months in January, data on Friday is likely to show, a sign the central bank's radical stimulus has yet to convince consumers that inflation will take hold.

The euro held steady on Wednesday, finding some support as investors held on to hopes that Greece will find enough common ground with its euro zone partners and avoid a chaotic exit from the currency union.

The Bank of Japan maintained its massive asset buying stimulus spree on Wednesday and revised up its view on exports and output, even as data showing only a feeble recovery from recession tempers its optimism.

The recent slide in global oil prices is a benefit for the world economy and could lead to some upgrades of economic forecasts, Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said on Monday.

Group of 20 finance officials look likely to reject a proposal to set countries specific investment targets to spur a global economy which appears increasingly reliant on the United States for growth.

Japan's government is likely to name academic Yutaka Harada, a proponent of aggressive steps to end deflation, to the central bank's policy board, the Nikkei newspaper said on Wednesday.

The Bank of Japan cut next fiscal year's inflation forecast on Wednesday and expanded a loan scheme aimed at boosting lending, acting to deflect criticism that it is sitting idly as slumping oil prices keep inflation well short of its target.

Japanese Economics Minister Akira Amari said on Tuesday he wants to hear what the Bank of Japan thinks about a sharp decline in oil prices and its impact on consumer prices, as the BOJ's 2 percent inflation goal becomes ever more difficult to reach.

Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said the bank has various tools left if it were to ease monetary policy again, stressing its determination to hit its inflation target in the next fiscal year.

Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda on Tuesday stressed the bank's readiness to expand stimulus further to meet its price goal, standing firm in the face of criticism that last month's monetary easing has accelerated unwelcome falls in the currency.

Japan's finance minister warned on Friday about the yen's weakening, describing it as "too rapid", but he stuck to the government's stance of allowing markets to determine exchange rates and dismissed the need to intervene to halt the slide.

Japanese stocks rose on Wednesday as investors held out hope for more robust growth after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe delayed a tax hike and called an early election to seek a fresh mandate for his aggressive policies to shore up the economy.

The Bank of Japan Governor not only surprised the markets with his latest splurge of monetary easing. He sprang it on his own board members just two days earlier, jolted into action to stop them making a low-ball forecast that might have sunk his flagship inflation target.

Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda does not need to convince Japanese people like Kazue Shibata that deflation brings problems, but getting them to believe that higher prices will make things better is proving to be a harder sell.