Japan last year posted its first trade surplus in six years thanks to a rebound in exports late in the year and persisting low oil prices, although uncertainties over US policy and global growth are overshadowing the recovery.
The ¥4.1 trillion yen (US$36.12 billion) surplus last year compared with a ¥2.8 trillion deficit in 2015, the government reported yesterday.
Exports fell 7.4 percent year-on-year to ¥70.04 trillion, while imports dropped 16 percent to ¥66 trillion, the report showed.
However, last month’s data showed a strong rebound in exports to China and some other Asian nations, suggestion a recent uptick in growth in Asia’s biggest economy is filtering through supply chains across the region.
For the whole of last year, Japan’s trade surplus with the US fell nearly 5 percent, to ¥6.8 trillion. Exports fell 7.1 percent annually to ¥14.1 trillion and imports dropped 7.3 percent to ¥7.3 trillion, the report said.
Japan ran a ¥4.6 trillion deficit with China, its largest trading partner, down by a quarter from 2015’s figure.
US President Donald Trump’s decision to drop out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact, and his comments on imposing “border taxes” on some imports has added to uncertainties over US trade policy.
“The sustainability of external demand remains the key for the Japan’s export recovery, because of emerging protectionism and uncertainties in the US trade policy, given President Donald Trump’s repeated concerns about Japan’s auto exports and trade surplus with the US,’’ Harumi Taguchi, principal economist at IHS Global Insight, said in a note.
A Japanese government spokesman yesterday said that Tokyo was discussing how to handle future trade negotiations such as the TPP and another Asian trade pact involving China, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.
Asked about reports Japan plans to set up a new agency to handle trade talks, Japanese Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Koichi Hagiuda said no decision had been made yet, but “there’s no denying that this is one of the options we’re considering.”
Past trade friction with the US over auto exports had largely eased after Japanese automakers expanded investments in US factories. Japan’s vehicle exports to the US rose a scant 0.6 percent last year, measured in terms of yen, but the number of vehicles shipped rose 7.7 percent to 1.75 million.
Globally, Japan’s vehicle exports fell 6 percent by value and 0.7 percent by volume, to 5.8 million units. Exports of most other products fell, suggesting only a tepid recovery in demand.
Japan’s trade balance slipped into deficit after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami triggered meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant and the country’s reactors were shut down for safety checks.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts