The dollar faced selling pressure Thursday as a batch of weak U.S. data raised the possibility that the Federal Reserve will push back an interest rate hike beyond mid-year.

In Tokyo, the greenback briefly slipped below the 119 yen level before recovering to 119.33 yen in afternoon trade, against 119.14 yen in New York. It was above 120 yen earlier this week.

A sluggish global economy, the Greek debt crisis and continuing fallout of the Ebola epidemic will take focus beginning Thursday when top finance officials gather for the World Bank and IMF Spring meetings.

With high unemployment festering in advanced economies, and emerging countries entering their fifth straight year of slowing growth, how to fire up output and demand is the primary order of business for the world's central bankers and finance ministers in Washington.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said Wednesday that he does not expect Greece to leave the eurozone, even if markets have already priced that into their calculations.

But he also said no deal had been reached yet between Athens and European Union negotiators on another financial lifeline for the country, as fears mount that it will default on its massive debt.

The head of the OECD on Wednesday credited a wave of loose monetary policy for preventing a global economic collapse, but warned it was now up to governments to lift growth and safeguard their economies.

Angel Gurria, secretary-general of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, made the comments in Tokyo where the 34-member club of rich nations was presenting its latest report on the Japanese economy.

The German government said Wednesday it will bring down overall public debt in the coming years as robust economic growth and record employment enables it to keep its finances in the black.

The German finance ministry announced that Europe's biggest economy aims to cut overall debt to 61.5 percent of economic output by 2019 from 74.7 percent last year.

Nokia has struck a 15.6-billion-euro deal to buy its rival Alcatel-Lucent to create the world's biggest supplier of mobile phone network equipment, both firms said Wednesday.

The merger of two companies that were once new technology stars but have since lost some of their luster will produce a European champion able to take on Nokia's Swedish rival Ericsson or fierce Chinese competition.

Inflation in Germany, Europe's biggest economy, crept higher in March, final data showed on Wednesday.

The national consumer price index (CPI) rose by 0.3 percent year-on-year in March, up from 0.1 percent in February, the federal statistics office Destatis said in a statement.

Oil prices climbed in Asia for a fifth-straight trading day Wednesday following forecasts that U.S. shale production would likely decline and help ease a global supply glut, analysts said.

U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate for May delivery gained 35 cents to $53.64 and Brent crude for May rose 57 cents to $59.00 in afternoon trade.

A total of 57 countries have been approved as founding members of a Chinese-backed infrastructure bank, Beijing said Wednesday, and Norway is included despite frosty relations over a Chinese dissident's Nobel prize.

No nations that formally sought to become founding members of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) are known to have been refused. But Taiwan, the self-governing island that Beijing regards as part of its territory, had its application for founding membership rejected.

Europe's economic outlook is finally beginning to brighten a little. But don't expect European Central Bank head Mario Draghi to sound all that excited when he takes the stage Wednesday for his next news conference.

Draghi will sound a little cautious in order to discourage any thought that the bank might make an early exit from its 1.1 trillion euro ($1.2 trillion) monetary stimulus program slated to run through September 2016.