TOKYO: The dollar eased slightly Wednesday as the Bank of Japan announced it will hold off further easing measures after a two-day policy meeting.
The US unit stood at 120.06 yen shortly after the decision was announced in early afternoon trade, compared with 120.32 in New York.
The euro was at $1.0835 and 130.12 yen, edging up from $1.0813 and 130.11 yen in New York.
While the market was little bothered by the central bank announcement, economists said Governor Haruhiko Kuroda will have to expand his easing measures sooner or later if he is to move Japan closer to his target of achieving stable 2.0 percent inflation.
"If Governor Kuroda is about to embark on an upshift in easing, it would more likely be the 30th of April, when they have an updated set of forecasts to be able to work from," said Raiko Shareef, a markets strategist in Wellington at Bank of New Zealand.
"There's been some pretty appreciable slowing in the Japanese economy, especially inflation numbers," he told Bloomberg News.
Kuroda was scheduled to address the media from 0630 GMT.
Economists and businesses have began to voice their increasing worries about the Japanese economy as the impact of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's stimulus packages fades and factory output slows.
The BoJ's closely watched Tankan report, released last week, showed that confidence among big manufacturers was plateauing.
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