BOJ must proceed with QE-deputy gov nominee Iwata

TOKYO, March 12 (Reuters) - The Bank of Japan must proceed with quantitative easing to ensure that the current positive market trend of yen weakness and stock price gains continue on expectations of higher inflation, Kikuo Iwata, the government's nominee to become next deputy BOJ governor, said on Tuesday.

"Bold monetary easing will be necessary for some time," Iwata said in a hearing at the upper house of parliament.

Last month Prime Minister Shinzo Abe named Iwata, 70, a professor at Tokyo's Gakushuin University, to be one of the two new deputy governors of the BOJ in a shift for more aggressive monetary easing to achieve a 2 percent inflation target and end nearly two decades of deflation.