According to Japan's Finance Ministry, the country's trade balance came in at 823.47 billion yen ($7.5 billion) in April 2016 from the deficit of 58.34 billion yen in the same month a year ago. Meanwhile, analysts had expected an increase to 535 billion yen.
Japanese exports contracted 10.1% to 5.89 trillion yen or $53.5 billion. The decline was partly due to a slowdown in auto exports as production of cars was down significantly because of a devastating earthquake in Japan in April. Experts had anticipated a 9.1% decline in exports.
Meanwhile, Japan’s imports fell for the sixteenth straight month, by 23.3% to 5.07 trillion yen. Lower energy prices are said to be the main reason behind the decline. Thus, oil imports price plummeted 51.8%, while imports price of liquefied natural gas fell 44.5%.
Trade turnover between Japan and China declined as well. Japanese shipments to China fell 7.6% to 1.04 trillion yen in the reporting period.
In the meantime, imports from China fell 16.8% to 1.33 trillion yen.
Shipments to the United States decreased 11.8% to 1.2 trillion yen, while imports declined 18.1% to 585.69 billion yen.
Exports to the EU countries grew 9.9% to 702.52 billion yen, while imports declined 8.4% to 617.45 billion yen.
In April 2016, Japanese national currency strengthened to 111.23 yen per dollar on average, up 7.2% from the same month of 2015.