{"id":16940,"date":"2023-04-20T06:01:32","date_gmt":"2023-04-20T06:01:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/japan-march-export-growth\/"},"modified":"2023-04-20T06:04:23","modified_gmt":"2023-04-20T06:04:23","slug":"japan-march-export-growth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/japan-march-export-growth\/","title":{"rendered":"Japan March export growth slows, annual trade deficit widens to record"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Tetsushi Kajimoto<\/p>\n

TOKYO (Reuters) -Japan’s export growth slowed in March, dragged down by a drop in China-bound shipments of cars and steel in a slide that underscores concern about slackening global demand amid higher interest rates and Western banking-sector jitters.<\/p>\n

Import growth outpaced exports in March, due to the hefty cost of coal, crude and oil products, helping bring the annual trade deficit in the world’s third-biggest economy to a record 21.7 trillion yen ($161 billion). It exceeded the previous record of 13.7 trillion yen in fiscal 2013.<\/p>\n

The yen’s depreciation by 16.5% from the same month a year earlier also boosted the value of imports, rather than driving up external shipments as Japanese exporters have shifted production overseas during previous periods of yen strength.<\/p>\n

Thursday’s data, released by the Ministry of Finance, showed exports rose 4.3% in March from a year earlier, logging a 25th straight month of increase, led by shipments of U.S.-bound cars. That was above economists’ median estimate of a 2.6% gain, but below a 6.5% increase in February.<\/p>\n

Analysts say Japan’s trade deficit will persist for the time being as exports weaken.<\/p>\n

“Chinese consumption lacks strength even after zero-COVID curbs were lifted,” said Takeshi Minami, chief economist at Norinchukin Research Institute.<\/p>\n

“Effects of the fully-fledged monetary tightening in the West since last summer will play out in their economies, causing Japan’s exports to turn downward going forward.”<\/p>\n

A months-long global monetary policy tightening streak to curb red-hot inflation has raised the spectre of a worldwide recession, while the recent failure of two mid-sized U.S. banks as well as troubles at Credit Suisse, have raised worries about a credit crunch.<\/p>\n

Thursday’s data showed imports rose 7.3% in the year to March, below the median estimate of an 11.4% increase and after the prior month’s 8.3% gain.<\/p>\n

The trade balance in March came to a deficit of 754.5 billion yen versus the median estimate for a deficit of 1.29 trillion yen in March, after a shortfall of 897 billion yen in February. <\/p>\n

By region, exports to the United States grew 9.4% in the year to March, slowing from the 14.9% seen in the previous month.<\/p>\n

Exports to China, Japan’s largest trading partner, fell 7.7% year-on-year in March, a fourth straight month of declines, the trade data showed.<\/p>\n

($1 = 134.7400 yen)<\/p>\n

(Reporting by Tetsushi Kajimoto; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell and Shri Navaratnam)<\/p>\n

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By Tetsushi Kajimoto TOKYO (Reuters) -Japan’s export growth slowed in March, dragged down by a drop in China-bound shipments of cars and steel in a slide that underscores concern about slackening global demand amid higher interest rates and Western banking-sector jitters. Import growth outpaced exports in March, due to the hefty cost of coal, crude […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":16943,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1216],"tags":[1223],"class_list":["post-16940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-economy","tag-updated"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportBusinessNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3J01E-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16940"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16940\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16981,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16940\/revisions\/16981"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}