Japan’s trade surplus hit a multi-year high last month, government data showed yesterday, as exports to China rebounded after a Lunar New Year lull.
The value of Japan’s total shipments abroad rose 11.3 percent, the most in two years, on strong demand for vehicle components and electronic parts, while imports grew 1.2 percent.
That resulted in a trade surplus of ¥813.4 billion (US$7.3 billion), reversing a January deficit and more than tripling the ¥235.5 billion surplus the previous year.
The latest figures marked Japan’s highest monthly trade surplus in nearly seven years.
The export surge was largely due to the Lunar New Year falling earlier than usual this year, resulting in a rebound last month. Japan’s exports to China tend to fall during the holiday as many businesses close.
Exports to China soared 28.2 percent from the same month last year, creating Japan’s first trade surplus with China in five years.
Japan also posted its first trade surplus with the US in three months last month.
The figures come at a sensitive time for Japan-US trade relations.
US President Donald Trump has accused Japan of devaluing the yen to boost exports, grouping it with other nations he says are taking “advantage” of the US, but Japan Macro Advisors chief economist and principal Takuji Okubo said Trump’s talk was unlikely to translate into measures that would seriously hurt Japan-US trade.
“I think this talk about the rise of protectionism, I think there’s a lot of hot air,” Okubo told Bloomberg News before the trade data was released. “For now there’s no obvious threat to the global economy, so I think it’s reasonable to expect moderate growth in global trade.”
Japan has been struggling to reverse a years-long deflationary spiral of falling prices and lackluster economic growth.
The nation had slipped into a long spell of trade deficits after the 2011 Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant disaster prompted a move to thermal power generation and pricey fossil fuel imports.
Falling crude oil prices have taken the pressure off Japan’s trade balance and exports are seen as a bright light for the world’s No. 3 economy, but Japan’s trade surplus is likely to decline in the coming months, Capital Economics’ Marcel Thieliant said, as energy prices rebound and the yen is expected to weaken — making US dollar-priced imports more expensive.
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