Daily Times

Japan´s trade surplus widened in August as the pandemic pummeled a wide array of industries and sapped consumer demand. The 15% drop in exports from a year earlier was outpaced by a more than 20% decline in imports, according to preliminary data from the Finance Ministry released Wednesday. In one rare bright spot, exports to China rose 5%. But both exports and imports with the US fell more than 20%, helping reduce the politically sensitive trade surplus by 20% to 373 billion yen ($3.5 billion). Many Japanese manufacturers provide chemicals, equipment and components for products assembled in China. Robust exports have helped drive growth in recent years but suffered as China´s economy slowed and the pandemic took hold. The pace of the decline in exports has been lessening as pandemic-related shutdowns in China, the US and Europe eased. Exports fell 28% year-on-year in May, 26% in June and 19% in July. Exports in August totaled 5.23 trillion yen ($49 billion), outpacing 4.98 trillion yen in imports ($47 billion), leaving a surplus of 248 billion yen ($2.4 billion). That compared with a 152.2 billion yen deficit a year earlier.