In a June meeting, Bank of Japan board members underscored the need to maintain monetary easing, to support an economy hampered by surging commodity prices while promoting more robust wage growth, in pursuit of the bank's inflation target, minutes showed Tuesday.

In the run-up to the June 16 to 17 meeting, the BOJ faced increased market pressure to adjust its policy at a time when its global peers were moving toward tightening their monetary grip to cope with surging inflation.

BOJ members agreed that inflation expectations had been rising, but that wage growth was still lagging compared with the United States and Europe.