Growth in Asia
Also last week, New Zealand's Reserve Bank increased the official cash rate, its benchmark, a quarter-point to 5 percent as growth in Asia accelerates. South Korea is already emerging from last year's slowdown and Taiwan is escaping its worst recession in 50 years.
That bodes well for Japan, in its third recession of the past decade.
Japanese exports rose in January at their fastest pace in two years. To satisfy the demand, manufacturers, who have trimmed inventories to an 11-year low, predicted the biggest increase in production in 45 years for February.
A 7.5 percent depreciation in the yen over the last year has also helped lift exports. Overseas sales, a 10th of Japan's economy, rose 1.6 percent in February.
That helped lead the government to raise its assessment of the economy in March, for the first time in 21 months.
"Exports, which have a relatively large impact on production, have stopped declining," the Bank of Japan said in its monthly report, released Friday.
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