Robust car exports led Japan's trade surplus to grow for the first time in three years in 2007, but a weakening US economy and high oil prices are increasingly dragging down growth, data showed Thursday.
Rising trade with Asia and Europe and growing car sales to emerging markets helped offset the downturn in demand from the United States, which grew worse in the last months of the year, the finance ministry said. The surplus in December alone fell by 20.9 percent, the second straight monthly fall and a steeper drop than analysts had predicted.
But the surplus for 2007 came to 10.82 trillion yen (101.51 billion dollars), up 37 percent from the previous year, the ministry said. Japan's imports grew 8.6 percent to 73.12 trillion yen in the year, with the rise attributed to purchases of crude oil and liquefied natural gas.
Total exports expanded 11.6 percent to 83.94 trillion yen, thanks to increases in shipments of automobiles, steel and telecommunication equipment. The main contributor was expanded exports to the European Union, which rose for the fifth consecutive year. The surplus grew 20 percent to 4.75 trillion yen, pushed up by car exports to the region which shot up 18.9 percent.
Japan's trade surplus declined 5.1 percent last year with the United States as Japanese exports to the world's largest economy declined 0.2 percent, the figures showed. It was a sharp contrast with China, to which Japan's exports rose 19 percent in the ninth straight annual increase.