(RTTNews) - Members of the Bank of Japan will indefinitely maintain the current extremely accommodative monetary conditions, minutes from the bank's monetary policy meeting on August 9-10 revealed on Friday.

The board members also acknowledged that the surging yen is likely to hurt exporters and could force production sits to move abroad, the minutes showed. The board members agreed to closely monitor the yen and its impact.

"The bank's baseline scenario projects that the economy is likely to be on a recovery trend," the minutes said. "With regard to prices, based on the assumption that medium- to long-term inflation expectations remain stable, the year-on-year rate of decline in the CPI (excluding fresh food) is expected to slow as the aggregate supply and demand balance improves gradually."

(RTTNews) - With the value of exports rising and the value of imports falling in the month of July, the U.S. trade deficit for the month narrowed by much more than economists had been expecting, according to a report released by the Commerce Department on Thursday.

The Commerce Department said that the trade deficit narrowed to $42.8 billion in July from a revised $49.8 billion in June. The trade deficit had been expected to narrow to $47.3 billion from the $49.9 billion originally reported for the previous month.

A rebound in the value of exports contributed to the bigger than expected decrease in the size of the trade deficit, with the value of exports rising by 1.8 percent to $153.3 billion in July after falling by 1.3 percent to $150.6 billion in June.

(RTTNews) - In another potential sign of improvement in the beleaguered labor market, the Labor Department released a report Thursday morning showing that first-time claims for unemployment benefits fell by much more than expected in the week ended September 4th.

The report showed that initial jobless claims fell to 451,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 478,000. Economists had been expecting jobless claims to edge down to 470,000 from the 472,000 originally reported for the previous week.

(RTTNews) - The value of home loan commitments in Australia increased 0.7 percent in July from June, according to data published Wednesday by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

The Bureau said the number of loan commitments for new, owner-occupied dwellings increased a seasonally adjusted 1.7 percent.

Commitments for purchases of new dwellings increased in number by 1.5 percent.

(RTTNews) - Core machinery orders in Japan surged a seasonally adjusted 8.8 percent in July compared to the previous month, the Cabinet Office said on Wednesday. That was sharply higher than analyst expectations for a 2.0 percent monthly increase following the 1.6 percent gain in June.

On an annual basis, core machinery orders surged 15.9 percent - again topping forecasts for an 8.1 percent gain after shedding 2.2 percent in the previous month.

Government orders eased 1.3 percent on month, while overseas orders added 2.6 percent and agency orders fell 1.8 percent. Private sector orders collected 6.4 percent on month.

(RTTNews) - Foreign residents were net sellers of Japan-based stocks last week, and net buyers of bonds and notes.

Japan's Ministry of Finance reported Wednesday that foreigners sold a net 173.5 billion yen more in Japan stocks than they sold for the week ending August 31, their second straight week as net sellers of stocks.

(RTTNews) - Bank lending in Japan declined 2.0 percent on year in August, the Bank of Japan said on Wednesday, coming in at 394.2 trillion yen. That follows a 1.9 percent annual contraction in July.

Including trusts, bank lending was down 1.9 percent on year to 456.7 trillion yen. That followed a 1.8 percent decline on year in the previous month.

(RTTNews) - Bank of Japan Governor Maasaki Shirakawa on Tuesday said the bank was assessing more policy options and assured that it was ready to act in an appropriate way if necessary.

The central bank chief expressed concern over the strong yen, adding that the BOJ was keeping a close eye on exchange rates. "We are aware that Japanese exporters have been greatly affected by the yen's strength," reports quoted him as saying.