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17-06-2022, 08:30 AM
PUBLISHED JUN 16, 2022, 9:17 AM SGT
TOKYO (REUTERS) - Japan ran its biggest single-month trade deficit in more than eight years in May as high commodity prices and declines in the yen swelled imports, clouding the country's economic outlook.
The growing trade deficit underscores the headwinds the world's third-largest economy faces from a slide in the yen and surging costs of fuel and raw materials, on which domestic manufacturers rely for production.
Imports soared 48.9 per cent in the year to May, Ministry of Finance data showed on Thursday (June 16), above a median market forecast for a 43.6 per cent gain in a Reuters poll.
This outpaced a 15.8 per cent year-on-year rise in exports in the same month, resulting in a 2.385 trillion yen (S$24.6 billion) trade deficit, the largest shortfall in a single month since January 2014.
May's deficit marked the 10th straight month of year-on-year shortfalls and was bigger than the 2.023 trillion yen gap expected in a Reuters poll.
More at: https://www.straitstimes.com/business/ec...-yen-sinks
TOKYO (REUTERS) - Japan ran its biggest single-month trade deficit in more than eight years in May as high commodity prices and declines in the yen swelled imports, clouding the country's economic outlook.
The growing trade deficit underscores the headwinds the world's third-largest economy faces from a slide in the yen and surging costs of fuel and raw materials, on which domestic manufacturers rely for production.
Imports soared 48.9 per cent in the year to May, Ministry of Finance data showed on Thursday (June 16), above a median market forecast for a 43.6 per cent gain in a Reuters poll.
This outpaced a 15.8 per cent year-on-year rise in exports in the same month, resulting in a 2.385 trillion yen (S$24.6 billion) trade deficit, the largest shortfall in a single month since January 2014.
May's deficit marked the 10th straight month of year-on-year shortfalls and was bigger than the 2.023 trillion yen gap expected in a Reuters poll.
More at: https://www.straitstimes.com/business/ec...-yen-sinks
