* No intention of watering down BOJ commitment-Iwata
* Adds underlying inflation trend improving
* Sticks to Governor Kuroda's optimism on economy, prices
* Some BOJ board members want more time to hit target-minutes (Adds quotes, details)
By Leika Kihara
SAPPORO, Japan, May 27 (Reuters) - Bank of Japan Deputy Governor Kikuo Iwata said on Wednesday the timing for achieving the bank's 2 percent inflation target has been "somewhat delayed" from its initial projection.
But he said that with the underlying trend of inflation improving steadily and wages on the rise, Japan will likely hit the 2 percent inflation mark around the first half of next fiscal year, beginning in April.
"At this moment, the BOJ has no intention of changing its commitment of achieving its price target at the earliest possible time," he told business leaders in Sapporo, in the northernmost Japanese prefecture of Hokkaido.
The BOJ pushed back the timing for achieving its ambitious inflation target on April 30, saying it now expects the goal to be met sometime by around September next year. Many analysts still see that forecast as too optimistic and expect the bank to ease policy again later this year.
The move also jars with the BOJ's commitment, made when it deployed its aggressive stimulus in April 2013, that it will aim to achieve 2 percent inflation in "roughly two years."
Iwata, a former academic and an architect of the current stimulus programme targeting base money, has been among those in the board who share Governor Haruhiko Kuroda's optimism on the prospects for hitting 2 percent inflation.
But minutes of the April 30 meeting, released on Wednesday, showed three of the nine board members wanted to allow themselves more time to hit the target or water down the commitment.
Iwata said what made the BOJ's current stimulus, dubbed "quantitate and qualitative easing," more effective than past policies was the fact the bank committed to a specific timeframe for hitting its price target.
While the timing for achieving 2 percent inflation may have been delayed somewhat, price growth will accelerate as private consumption rebounds from the slump that followed last year's sales tax hike and companies ramp up spending, he said.
"Going forward, inflation is likely to accelerate. That will bring about a rise in inflation expectations, and such expectations are expected to remain firm," he said.
(Reporting by Leika Kihara; Additional reporting by Stanley White in Tokyo; Editing by Chang-Ran Kim and Eric Meijer)
