Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda suggested Wednesday that the domestic economy will unlikely be hit hard by slowing growth of overseas economies.

"The Japanese economy has been expanding moderately as a trend," Kuroda said at the start of a quarterly meeting of managers of BOJ branches across the country.

"The effect of slowing overseas growth will remain, but the impact on domestic demand will be limited," he said, indicating that Japan's economy will continue to expand at a moderate pace.

Kuroda reiterated the central bank's readiness to take additional easing steps "without hesitation" if a deceleration in overseas economies threatens to undermine domestic prices' momentum of growth toward the BOJ-set target of 2 pct.

At the meeting, the branch managers discussed the current condition of manufacturers hit by U.S.-China trade friction, as well as to what extent private consumption in Japan has been affected by the consumption tax hike to 10 pct from 8 pct last October.

According to the BOJ's "tankan" quarterly survey for December, business sentiment among large manufacturers in Japan fell for the fourth straight quarter, while sentiment among large nonmanufacturers, including retailers, showed resilience.

In a report released later on Wednesday, the BOJ cut its economic assessments for the Hokuriku and Tokai central Japan regions, and the Chugoku western region. The views for the six other regions were left unchanged.

In the previous October report, the BOJ upgraded its assessment for Hokkaido, northernmost Japan, while keeping the views for the other eight regions.

JIJI Press