Japan’s annual current account surplus is the lowest on record, government figures showed yesterday, as fossil fuel bills and a sliding yen overshadow rising exports.
For fiscal last year, the value of the goods, services and investments that left Japan exceeded those coming in by ￥789.9 billion, (US$7.75 billion), plunging 81.3 percent from ￥4.2 trillion the previous year.
The figure was the lowest since the Japanese Ministry of Finance started keeping comparable data in 1985. “Exports increased, including those bound for the US and China. But the trade deficit expanded due to the increase of imports such as crude oil and liquefied natural gas,” the ministry said in a statement.
Photo: AFP
The current account is the broadest measure of the country’s trade with the rest of the world, including not only trade in goods, but also services, tourism and returns on foreign investment.
“Japan Inc” has significant amounts of money tied up in overseas investments, and it is the repatriation of income from these that means it still runs a current account surplus.
The country saw a trade deficit of ￥10.86 trillion for the year, nearly doubling a deficit of ￥5.62 trillion seen in the previous year.
Exports rose 12.2 percent to ￥69.80 trillion, while imports jumped 19.6 percent to ￥80.67 trillion.
Japan used to boast a large trade surplus on exports of cars and other industrial products, but the nation has recently been saddled with heavy deficits stoked by its dependence on importing fossil fuels to generate electricity, after nuclear reactors were shut down following the 2011 tsunami-sparked atomic disaster.
The yen’s sharp depreciation since late 2012 has also pushed up import costs.
Crude oil prices increased 16.6 percent in yen-denominated terms on a yearly basis, but in US dollar-terms, it fell 3.4 percent, the ministry said.
The financial value of crude oil imports to Japan rose 18.4 percent while the actual volume of imported oil only went up by 1.5 percent, the ministry said.
For the single month of March, Japan’s current account surplus came to ￥116.4 billion, shrinking 90.9 percent from ￥1.28 trillion seen in the previous year.
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