Disastrous trade deficit of Japan quadrupled in March with export growth slowing down and energy exports surging high. The weak Japanese currency was also a driving force and contributed to widen the gap and pushing the cost of imports high.
The deficit rose to 1.45 trillion yen($14bn) from 356.9bn yen, which was the recorded amount the same month last year. Japan’s energy imports have been rising ever after it had shut all its nuclear reactors in the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami that happened in 2011.
Reports from the latest trade data suggest that imports of Liquefied Petroleum Gas rose to more than 8% in March against the same data recorded in last year at that month. Imports of LPG too rose by nearly 4%.
The land of rising sun is now having to pay more for the imports after a series of aggressive policies were adopted to spur economic growth. This was also aimed at boosting up the country’s money supply but in turn led to weakening of the yen to a drastic amount.
The Japanese currency decremented nearly 10% against erstwhile US dollar between March 2013 and March 2014.
According to the latest reports, LPG imports rose by 8.1% in volume during March and the imports went up to 18%.
