Japan trade surplus dips, Sept 11 impact felt

Japan trade surplus dips, Sept 11 impact felt Yoko Nishikawa Reuters Tokyo

Japan's trade surplus shrank in September, data showed on Monday, with a sharp drop in exports to the United States suggesting some fallout from the Sept. 11 attacks and raising more concerns about the state of the economy.

Overall, Japan's customs-cleared trade surplus fell 18.3 percent in September from a year earlier to 1.06 trillion yen (US$8.76 billion), the Ministry of Finance reported.

The surplus with Japan's largest trading partner, the United States, fell 9.6 percent year-on-year, with exports dropping 11.9 percent -- the biggest year-on-year fall in two years.

Economists said a 14.6 percent fall in imports from the United States reflected days of crippled air cargo traffic in the aftermath of the attacks, and a general slowdown in economic activity at home and abroad.

"The decline in surplus is due to special factors, especially the terrorist attacks on the United States," said Minako Iida, an economist at Deutsche Securities.

"The attacks also had some impact on Japanese exports to the United States given the closure of airports, but the impact is more apparent in imports."

Japan's trade surplus with the rest of Asia fell 31.6 percent in September from a year ago pushed down by a prolonged slump in demand for Japanese hi-tech products.

The trade surplus with the rest of Asia fell for the 10th consecutive month to 316.99 billion yen as exports dropped 14.8 percent to 1,650.4 billion yen and imports declined 9.5 percent to 1,333.4 billion yen.

Japan's trade deficit with Indonesia reached 66.3 billion yen in September, down 4.9 percent from a year earlier.

Tokyo was studying the slip in imports from Asia, a ministry official said.

"We are closely watching the import trend here to see whether it will continue. DRAM, computer parts and other information technology-related components saw particularly large falls," said the official.

Imports of electronic parts and semiconductors from Asia fell 43.4 percent year-on-year, the ministry said in a statement.

Makoto Ishihara, economist at the Japan Research Institute, also said the sluggish demand for IT products depressed Japan's trade with the rest of Asia.

"Many firms are finalising their inventory adjustment. But the current severe business situation of the IT sector is likely to continue," he said.

The slowdown in Asian trade was due in part to Japanese hi- tech manufacturers' moves to consolidate and merge their Asian production centres to reduce their production capacity amid slowing demand for hi-tech products, Ishikawa said.