By Makiko Yamazaki<\/p>\n
TOKYO, Jan 22 (Reuters) – Japan’s exports rose for a fourth straight month in December, government data showed on \u200bThursday, as slower shipments to the U.S. were offset \u200cby strong demand elsewhere as well as by a boost to sales from the \u200cyen’s decline.<\/p>\n
Total exports by value rose 5.1% year-on-year in, data showed, less than a median market forecast for a 6.1% increase and after a 6.1% rise in November.<\/p>\n
Exports to the United States fell 11.1% in December \u2060from a year earlier, \u200cwhile those to China were up 5.6%, the data showed.<\/p>\n
Imports grew 5.3% in December from a year earlier, \u200dcompared with market forecasts for a 3.6% increase.<\/p>\n
As a result, Japan ran a trade surplus of 105.7 billion yen ($667.13 million), compared with the forecast of \u200ba surplus of 356.6 billion yen.<\/p>\n
Japan’s export performance has been bolstered \u200cby the yen’s depreciation, a firm U.S. economy and a September trade agreement with Washington that set a baseline 15% tariff on nearly all goods.<\/p>\n
While U.S.-bound exports fell in December, the impact from U.S. tariffs overall has proven milder than expected.<\/p>\n
That led the Japanese government \u2060to revise its economic growth forecast for \u200bthe fiscal year through March to \u200b1.1%, up from an earlier 0.7%.<\/p>\n
Amid easing concerns over trade frictions, the Bank of Japan raised its policy rate \u200dto a 30-year \u2060high of 0.75% in December.<\/p>\n
The central bank is expected to signal its readiness for further rate hikes at its two-day policy \u2060meeting ending on Friday, as recent yen falls and prospects of solid wage gains \u200ckeep policymakers alert to containing inflationary pressure.<\/p>\n
($1 = 158.4400 yen)<\/p>\n
(Reporting \u200cby Makiko YamazakiEditing by Shri Navaratnam)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Makiko Yamazaki TOKYO, Jan 22 (Reuters) – Japan’s exports rose for a fourth straight month in December,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":422902,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[35495,28,101,44832,3471,201656,23226],"class_list":{"0":"post-422901","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-bank-of-japan","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-economy","11":"tag-government-data","12":"tag-japan","13":"tag-market-forecasts","14":"tag-trade-surplus"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=422901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/422902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=422901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=422901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=422901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}