The US Treasury Department said it will urge Japan to refrain from competitive devaluation while stopping short of accusing it of manipulating the yen in a report on exchange rates.

The Treasury will pressure Japan to adhere to international commitments "to remain oriented towards meeting respective domestic objectives using domestic instruments and to refrain from competitive devaluation and targeting its exchange rate for competitive purposes," the department said in its semi-annual currency report to Congress released in Washington on Friday. The report also declined to name China a currency manipulator.

"This is a shot across the BOJ's bow," Kit Juckes, a global strategist at Societe Generale SA in London, said in an e-mail. "Everyone still supports Japan's fight against deflation, but the United States would much rather the yen did not weaken significantly further."