TOKYO (AFX-ASIA) - The yen was weaker in midafternoon on speculation over possible purchases of foreign bonds by Japan, providing a trigger for a technical push higher for the dollar/yen, dealers said. Dresdner Bank head of foreign exchange Marito Ueda said the dollar rose from late morning trade on increased speculation that the Bank of Japan may buy foreign bonds to help ease monetary policy and weaken the yen. Finance Minister Masajuro Shiokawa said at a regular briefing this morning that the government could possibly buy any government bonds that are issued by the US to fund its 'war against terrorism'. Even though the supposed US 'war-bonds' are hypothetical, with no specific plans for such an issue, the fact that Shiokawa says he would consider the possibility is significant in itself, dealers said. "People are thinking about foreign-currency bond purchases by Japan, so they could find no reason to buy the yen," Ueda said, adding that the comments saw a breach of resistance at 124.30-50 yen and provided a new target of 125.30 yen. The market saw almost no reaction to Japan's GDP data released this morning, which came in largely in line with expectations. Third quarter to September GDP fell 0.5 pct from the June quarter, when the revised quarter-on-quarter fall was 1.2 pct, for an annualised decline of 2.2 pct, the Cabinet Office said. "The GDP was still within expectations," Dresdner's Ueda said, even though the figures were poor, so the impact was limited. Economists had forecast a third quarter decline in GDP of up to 1.0 pct over the previous quarter. However, several had upgraded their estimates by as much as 0.5 percentage points after strong company investment data from the Ministry of Finance this week, leaving the actual result largely in line with expectations. UBS Warburg chief economist Hiromichi Shirakawa believes the market may have underestimated how weak the GDP was because of the second quarter revision. "Consumption will remain weak. On the other hand private capital expenditure rose in the third quarter, supported by software spending, but this will start to deteriorate in the fourth quarter," he said.