India, March 18 -- The Bank of Japan will wrap up its monetary policy meeting on Wednesday and then announce its decision on interest rates, headlining a busy day for Asia-Pacific economic activity. The BoJ is widely expected to keep its benchmark lending rate unchanged at 0.50 percent.

Japan also will see January figures for core machinery orders and industrial production, as well as February data for imports, exports and trade balance. Machine orders are expected to slip 0.1 percent on month and gain 6.9 percent on year after falling 1.2 percent on month and adding 4.3 percent on year in December.

Imports are expected to add 0.1 percent on year after climbing 16.7 percent in January. Exports are called higher by an annual 12.1 percent, ...