Japan’s record trade deficit with China
Weaker demand, seasonal factors behind slump
TOKYO: Japan logged a record trade deficit with China in January as exports dropped by a fifth, underscoring concerns about how sharply China is slowing and its ability to buffer a frail global economy against European turmoil.
The 20.1% annual slump in exports to China, Japan’s main export market, condemned Tokyo to a record monthly trade deficit, stark evidence of the pain from a firm yen, the global slowdown and fuel imports to make up for idled nuclear plants.
Japan’s shortfall with China was 587.9 billion yen (Us$7.4bil), 40% of the total trade deficit for January, Japanese finance ministry data showed.
While the drop in exports was exacerbated by an early Lunar New Year holiday hitting shipments of steel and other manufacturing inputs, it was still the fourth straight month the Japanese exports to China have fallen in annual terms.
“Chinese authorities may already be worrying about weakening demand,” said Mari Iwashita, chief market economist at SMBC Nikko Securities, pointing to Saturday’s policy easing with a 50 basis point cut in banks’ reserve requirement ratio, the amount of cash banks must hold in reserves.
The move by the Chinese central bank will boost lending capacity by an estimated 350 billion to 400 billion yuan (Us$55.6bil-us$63.5bil) in a bid to crank up credit creation.
The Chinese Lunar New Year holiday, which fell in late January this year but in early February last year, pushed down what was already declining demand in China, with Japanese exports falling for almost all items, a Ministry of Finance (MOF) official said.
Chinese data shows sharp falls in imports from its main trading partners in January, consistent with the Lunar New Year distorting regular trade, but it also shows import demand had been slowing in the final quarter of 2011.
Japan has also been hit by declining demand elsewhere. Its trade surplus with the European Union shrank to its smallest ever, at just 689 million yen, as exports dipped 7.7%.
And as Asia’s exports to Europe slumped due to the economic turmoil, so did Japan’s exports of semiconductors and plastics to the rest of Asia, the MOF official said.
Japan’s total trade deficit for January was 1.475 trillion yen (Us$18.59bil), bigger than the median forecast of 1.468 trillion yen in a Reuters poll and more than 50% larger than the previous record of a 967.9 billion yen deficit in January 2009, in the wake of the global financial crisis.
Exports slumped 9.3% in January from a year earlier, slightly less than the median market estimate of 9.5% but still the fourth straight month of declines, indicating that the economy could struggle to recover even as reconstruction proceeds from last year’s earthquake and tsunami.
Imports grew 9.8% from a year earlier, exceeding the median estimate for a 9.5% annual rise. — Reuters