Asia Week Ahead: BoJ, MAS, China, and Taiwan in Focus

The upcoming week in Asia will see several key economic events and releases that may impact market sentiment. The Bank of Japan (BoJ) is expected to keep its policy rate unchanged at 1.0% on Friday, as there appears to be little urgency for further policy adjustment.

In Singapore, the Monetary Authority (MAS) is also expected to stay on hold despite rising oil prices and a resilient economy. The MAS has sufficient room to defer any policy tightening until October, according to ING Think.

China will release its industrial profits data for the first half of the year on Monday, which is expected to show a recovery trend in hi-tech and export-facing industries. The official July PMI data will also be released on Friday, with ING Think predicting a slight cooling in manufacturing PMI to 50.1 and non-manufacturing PMI to slow to 50.0.

Taiwan's main data release is second-quarter GDP, out on Friday, which is expected to show double-digit growth of 12.1% year-on-year, driven primarily by net exports.