Japanese exports rose in April the most in a full decade as demand from overseas continued to pick up.
According to figures released from Japan’s finance ministry on Thursday, soaring car and auto parts experts helped fuel a 38% leap in Japan’s exports from the same time a year earlier.
The fastest gain since April 2010 surpassed the 30.9% increase forecast by economists and was considerably higher than the 16.1% increase recorded in March.
Last month’s big increase reflected a broad-based recovery in world economies. Exports to the rest of Asia and the US increased the most for 11 years. Meanwhile, exports to the EU increased the most for more than four decades.
Exports to China, the world’s second-largest economy and Japan’s largest trading partner, increased 33.9% year-on-year in April. The big spike in exports to China was led by shipments of chip-making equipment, hybrid cars, and scrap copper.
Meanwhile, exports to the U.S. surged 45.1% from the same time a year before and exports to the European Union jumped 39.6%
Yuichi Kodama, chief economist at Meiji Yasuda Research Institute said:
“The trade data confirmed that exports were recovering steadily. Particularly car exports, which fell a lot last year, are picking up,”
“In Japan, capital spending tends to move in sync with external demand, so an export recovery is encouraging for machinery orders and capital expenditure.”
Yuichi Kodama
Japanese Core Machinery Orders Post Modest Gain
Other financial news released from Japan, the world’s third-largest economy, on Thursday, showed that Japan’s core machinery orders, a highly volatile data series regarded as an indicator of capital spending in the coming six to nine months, increased 3.7% in March from February’s figures.
The increase in core orders, which exclude electric utilities, was lower than the 6.4% rise expected by market analysts in a Reuters poll.
