Tokyo stocks close higher

TOKYO: Tokyo stocks closed higher on Monday, tracking gains on Wall Street, with investors focusing on a Federal Reserve meeting this week.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 index rose 0.74 percent, or 213.07 points, to end at 29,161.80, while the broader Topix index gained 0.29 percent, or 5.73 points, to 1,959.75.

"The Nikkei index rose following gains of all three US indexes," said Okasan Online Securities.

"The market is closely watching FOMC," said Toshikazu Horiuchi, a broker at IwaiCosmo Securities, referring to a meeting of the US central bank's Federal Open Market Committee.

Concerns are growing that the Fed could be forced to reduce or "taper" its bond-buying scheme, or lift interest rates earlier than planned, to prevent the economy from overheating.

Investors largely welcomed the results of the weekend summit of G7 leaders in Britain.

"But the communique was still within expectations and not significant enough to impact the market," Horiuchi told AFP.

G7 leaders on Sunday vowed to start delivering one billion doses of Covid vaccines to poorer nations and to step up action on climate change, in a US-led summit call to arms that also took on China and Russia.

Toshiba jumped 2.69 percent to 4,770 yen after apologising to shareholders and saying it would remove two directors following an independent probe that found the Japanese conglomerate had sought government help to try and influence a boardroom vote.

Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing grew 2.21 percent to 84,330 yen while SoftBank Group climbed 0.70 percent to 8,056 yen.

Toyota advanced 0.39 percent to 9,900 yen while Nissan rose 1.18 percent to 555.3 yen.

The dollar changed hands at 109.71 yen in Asian trade against 109.66 in New York late Friday.