Japan’s current account surplus falls 90.9% in March

Japan’s current account surplus dropped 90.9 per cent from a year earlier to 116.4 billion yen (1.14 billion dollars) in March amid a weaker yen and growing fossil fuel imports, the government said Monday.

Japan’s surplus on the primary income account edged up 1.6 per cent to 1.75 trillion yen while it logged a trade deficit of 1.13 trillion yen, the Finance Ministry said in a preliminary report.

The Japanese yen has lost its value by about 20 per cent since the start of 2013 amid the Bank of Japan’s aggressive monetary easing steps.

The depreciation of the currency has driven up import costs as Japan imported more petroleum and liquefied natural gas for thermal power generation because of the shutdown of the nation’s nuclear reactors following the 2011 atomic disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station.

For the previous financial year, Japan’s current account surplus fell 81.3 per cent from a year earlier to 789.9 billion yen for the third straight year of decline, the ministry said. It was the smallest account surplus since the ministry started compiling data in 1985.