Japan’s Ministry of Finance released a report that showed a fall in the country’s exports by 10.3% to 5.87 trillion yen ($53.2 billion) in October from a year ago. In September, exports declined by 6.9%. Japan’s shipments have been falling for 13th month in a row.
Meanwhile, economists had expected a 9.4% fall in October.
According to the Ministry of Finance, the situation is now better than in spring 2016, when the Japanese exports were weighed by concerns over sharp GDP growth deceleration in China and other countries.
According to MarketWatch, short-term forecasts for exports have improved amid the yen depreciation after Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election.
Meanwhile, Japan’s imports declined by 16.5% to 5.374 trillion yen from the same period a year before. Imports have been contracting for 22nd consecutive month.
Japan’s trade surplus for the reporting period came in at 496.2 billion yen, while economists had anticipated trade surplus of 610 billion yen.
In the July to September period, the Japanese GDP rose for third quarter in a row to post 2.2% on a yearly basis after edging up by 0.7% in the second quarter.
