The minutes of the Bank of Japan's July monetary policy meeting, released today (August 14), showed members expressing some limited optimism regarding the global outlook.

"Members concurred that overseas economies had shown some, albeit moderate, improvement, but on the whole still had not emerged from a deceleration phase," the minutes said. Members agreed, however, that countries were likely to steadily emerge from this phase, with growth in the US and China expected to be mutually reinforcing