Import Surge Slashes Japan’s Trade Surplus : $1-Billion Decline in June Viewed Favorably

TOKYO — Brisk imports helped trim Japan’s surplus in trade of goods and services in June by more than $1 billion from the same month last year and should keep slicing the surplus in coming months, economists said.

Japan’s June current account surplus, announced on Friday, tumbled to $6.43 billion from $7.50 billion a year earlier. In May, the surplus was $5.79 billion.

“The trend looks definitely good,” said economist Hidehiro Iwai of Nomura Research Institute. “That is owing to the sharp increases in imports.”

Imports in June surged 35% from a year earlier to $14.03 billion, outpacing a 16.2% rate of growth for exports, which came to $21.41 billion. Trade of just goods came to $7.38 billion, compared to $8.04 billion a year earlier.

Iwai said he had anticipated the rise in exports would be even higher because Japan has been shipping more high-priced capital goods to Southeast Asia and the United States.

That trend should continue as Japan sets up more factories abroad where wages are cheaper than at home, he said.

Particularly there have been more exports of machine tools to the United States and semiconductors to Southeast Asia, he added.

Outflows of long-term capital from Japan also declined from the growing overseas investments by Japanese corporations in production facilities, said economist Soichi Enkyo of Bank of Tokyo Ltd.