Japan's annual exports in January fell the most since the global financial crisis as demand weakened in China and other major markets, leaving policy makers battling to revive a fragile economy after a fourth-quarter contraction. Exports fell 12.9 percent year-on-year in January in their fourth straight month of declines, Ministry of Finance data showed on Thursday, led by a slump in shipments of steel and oil products as Japan and much of the rest of Asia were put to the sword by feeble external demand.
It was the biggest drop since October 2009 when the global financial crisis knocked demand across the world. The volume of shipments fell 9.1 percent year-on-year in January, down for seven months in a row and the worst slide in three years. The latest data adds to growing concerns that Japanese authorities are increasingly left with few options to revive a stumbling economy even as the Bank of Japan remains proactive in policymaking, shocking markets last month by adopting negative interest rates to spark momentum.
HSBC co-head of Asian economic research Frederic Neumann said global trade suffered a significant deterioration at the start of 2016, blaming China for much of the downturn. "Slowing growth in the mainland (China) economy is clearly taking its toll. Unfortunately, we see few signs that growth is bottoming out," he said in a note to clients. Indeed, Japan is not alone in suffering a rough start to the year for its exporters, with the chill in China rippling across trade-reliant regional economies such as South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore.
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