SINGAPORE, Jan 17 Last minute doubts that the Bank of Japan will raise interest rates thi

SINGAPORE, Jan 17 (Reuters) Last minute doubts that the Bank of Japan will raise interest rates this week lifted Japanese government bonds on Wednesday and sent the yen to 13-month low against the dollar.

Asian technology shares dipped as U.S. chipmaker Intel and others offered a downbeat outlook, helping push Tokyo's Nikkei down 0.7 percent.

Crude steadied after prices tumbled on Tuesday below $51 a barrel -- their lowest level in 2005. Gold slipped.

The yen slid against the dollar to 120.87 as media reports dampened widespread expectations for a Japan rate rise this week. The central bank starts a two-day meeting on Wednesday and will announce its decision on Thursday.

Benchmark March government bond futures jumped 0.74 point to 134.50, their highest level in three weeks.

''At this point, the market isn't fully disregarding a rate hike this week but views are strengthening that political pressure will stand in the way,'' said Chotaro Morita, strategist at Deutsche Securities.

The benchmark 10-year yield fell to a three-week low, dropping 6 basis points to 1.675 percent, sharply down from a two-month high of 1.760 percent on Monday.

The BOJ is considering whether to raise the overnight call rate to 0.50 percent, which would be the highest in a decade, from the current 0.25 percent.

The BOJ raised interest rates for the first time in six years in July 2006, and said it would gradually ratchet them up.

In a Reuters poll earlier this week, 29 of 35 respondents said they expected the BOJ to raise rates.

But an array of reports from Kyodo news agency, the Nikkei newspaper and others threw that into doubt. They said the BOJ wanted more time to assess the strength of consumer spending, the economy's soft spot, and to wait for more signs of a pick-up in consumer prices.

TECH SHARES HIT MSCI's index of non-Japan Asian shares was down 0.7 percent at 0234 GMT and Hong Kong's Hang Seng pulled back 0.3 percent.

Energy stocks fell on weak crude prices and technology shares were hurting after Intel said gross margins will not improve this year.

In Seoul, screen display maker LG Philips LCD slid 2.4 percent after earnings guidance that was worse than some analysts had expected.

''Overall, the IT sector is not looking sexy at all right now. Just because the sector hasn't performed well last year doesn't mean it will get better this year,'' said Thomas Choi, head of research at PCA Asset Management in Seoul.

''Earnings will depend on a lot of things, like the U.S.

economy, for example. Margins are getting squeezed, and the exchange rate is still a factor. Global competition is also getting fiercer,'' he said.

U.S. stocks closed mixed on Tuesday. The Dow Jones industrial average edged up 0.2 percent to a record close but the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index fell 0.2 percent.

OIL DOWN $10 IN 2007 Oil edged back above $51 after dropping sharply on Tuesday on comments from Saudi Arabia's oil minister that OPEC supply cuts were working well and the exporters' group did not need to hold an emergency meeting to arrest a slide in the price.

Oil prices have fallen about $10 so far in January.

Other commodities have also faced a rocky start to the year, with copper down about 10 percent since Jan. 2 and 30 percent from May's record high.

''We should not underestimate the global mood on commodities,'' said Frederic Lasserre of SG CIB in Paris. ''There is not as much appetite for commodities anymore.'' Gold slipped to $624.00/$625.00 an ounce, down about $1 from late New York levels.

REUTERS PV GC1239