Japan’s export slump deepened last month, with the value of shipments dropping the most in three years, as a US-China trade dispute weighs on global demand.
Exports fell 9.2 percent from a year earlier, as drops in automobile and steel shipments led an 11th consecutive monthly decline, extending the longest streak of declines since 2016, Japanese Ministry of Finance data showed yesterday.
Economists had forecast a 7.5 percent slide in exports.
Exports to China dropped 10.3 percent, while shipments to the US fell 11.4 percent, the data showed.
China and the US are Japan’s two biggest markets.
Despite rumblings that Washington and Beijing are nearer to a truce that could roll back tariffs, global manufacturers remain in a funk over the global economy and uncertainty surrounding the trade outlook.
Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda on Tuesday said that the central bank needs to continue carefully monitoring the impact of overseas developments on Japan’s economy and price momentum.
Takeshi Minami, economist at Norinchukin Research Institute, said the continued weakness in exports could be a factor that pushes the Japanese government to add to the size of a stimulus package announced earlier this month, partly to shield the economy from the global slowdown.
“We may see politicians increasingly calling for a sizable economic package,” he said.
Still, the latest data, partly distorted by bad weather, need not be a cause for pessimism, Minami said, adding that there were further signs that the worst was over for the global tech sector.
Speaking after the data was released, a ministry official said that manufacturing disruption caused by Typhoon Hagibis might have contributed to last month’s drop in auto trade.
Imports slid 14.8 percent, compared with economists’ median estimate of a 15.2 percent slump. The trade balance was a ￥17.3 billion (US$159.61 million) surplus, the first since June.
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