Jan 14 (Reuters) - Foreigners were net buyers of Japanese shares for a third straight week, buoyed by automakers and other exporters' strong performance, although a hawkish view in the U.S. Federal Reserve meeting minutes, capped inflows.

They purchased stocks worth 347.09 billion yen ($3.05 billion) in the week ended Jan. 7, their biggest weekly net buying since Sept. 10, data from Japanese exchanges showed.

Outsiders bought 298.89 billion yen in cash equity markets and secured derivatives of 48.2 billion yen.

Cross-border investors also purchased Japanese bonds of 2.94 trillion yen last week, marking a second straight week of net buying, finance ministry data showed.

Last week, the yen dipped to a five-year low against the dollar, which boosted demand for the country's exporters.

Toyota Motor Corp surged 9.6% last week, thanks to its upbeat auto sales volume in the U.S. in 2021, meanwhile, Honda Motor gained 6.23%.

Sony Group also posted a third successive weekly gain on announcement of establishing a new company for electric vehicles.

However, investors sold expensive growth stocks after minutes of the Fed's last meeting signalled the central bank may raise interest rates sooner than expected.

Japanese indexes were mixed last week. The Nikkei share average dropped 1.1% after four straight weeks of gains, while the Topix index rose by a marginal 0.17%.

This week, Nikkei lost 1.2% and the Topix slipped 0.9% on mounting concerns over the rising COVID-19 infections in Tokyo, while prospects of a Fed rate hike as early as March also weighed on sentiments.

Japanese investors purchased 683.8 billion yen worth of overseas bonds last week, which was there first weekly net buying in four weeks, meanwhile, they sold a net 834.5 billion worth of cross-border equities, the biggest since April 16, 2021. ($1 = 113.8000 yen)

(Reporting by Gaurav Dogra and Patturaja Murugaboopathy in Bengaluru; Editing by Rashmi Aich)