Japan was hit by more bad economic news yesterday as rising energy costs shaved the current account surplus and wholesale prices grew at their fastest pace in nearly three decades.
The data was released as Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party launched a race to pick the next prime minister, with the health of the world’s second-largest economy emerging as the top issue.
With the cost of imports hitting a record high, the current account surplus fell 17.3 percent in July from a year ago to ¥1.53 trillion (US$14.29 billion), the finance ministry said.
Analysts said that the figure clouded the prospect of Japan’s economy, which contracted in the second quarter, expanding anytime soon.
“Exports are losing luster as the global economy deteriorates, including in US and Europe — and not excluding Asia, which is showing signs it is flagging,” Dai-Ichi Life Research Institute senior economist Toshihiro Nagahama told Dow Jones Newswires.
“The weak trend of exports is set to continue with the world’s economy expected to worsen even more. Japan’s economic weakness is probably here to stay until at least the end of the current fiscal year,” he said.
The trade surplus fell 69.8 percent to ¥232.2 billion. Japan’s exports rose 8.7 percent to ¥7.29 trillion, but imports jumped 18.9 percent to a record-high ¥7.06 trillion, the finance ministry said.
The value of imports was inflated by the rising cost of energy in Japan, which has virtually no fossil fuel resources on its own.
Crude oil imports rose 69.2 percent to ¥733.8 billion, coal imports more than doubled to ¥174.0 billion and liquid natural gas imports rose 59.3 percent to ¥155.0 billion.
The raw material prices have also triggered a spike in costs of merchandise for consumers — prompting worries about inflation in an economy that for the past decade had instead been battling against deflation.
Japan’s wholesale prices shot up 7.2 percent last month from a year earlier, growing at the fastest pace in 27 years on higher energy costs, central bank figures showed.
The figure was higher than market expectations of a 7.1 percent increase but a notch down from a revised 7.3 percent rise in the previous month, the Bank of Japan said.
It was the fastest-pace increase since an 8.1 percent rise in January 1981, when the country was reeling from the second oil crisis, the bank said.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
RESTAURANT POISONING? Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang at a press conference last night said this was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan An autopsy discovered bongkrekic acid in a specimen collected from a person who died from food poisoning after dining at the Malaysian restaurant chain Polam Kopitiam, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said at a news conference last night. It was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝) said. The testing conducted by forensic specialists at National Taiwan University was facilitated after a hospital voluntarily offered standard samples it had in stock that are required to test for bongkrekic acid, he said. Wang told the news conference that testing would continue despite
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)