Japan Exports:

 https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20210419/p2g/00m/0bu/033000c

Article:

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Japan's exports in March grew 16.1 percent from a year earlier, the largest gain in over three years, as the pace of recovery from the initial impact of the coronavirus pandemic picked up on brisk material shipments to China, government data showed Monday.

Exports stood at 7.38 trillion yen ($68 billion), with its year-on-year expansion marking the biggest increase since a 16.2 percent jump in November 2017, the Finance Ministry said in a preliminary report. They declined 4.5 percent in February.

Ideas:

Export growth is always good, but we have to remember that some of the growth might be related to what was missed in the previous year, especially as China had shutdown by March 2020 and normal business activity was shutdown in many of the industries including manufacturing companies that rely on Japanese intermediate products.

But that doesn't explain it all when it was be biggest increase since 2017, which is very good.

Article:

Rising from 6.36 trillion yen a year ago when the virus outbreak began to dampen global demand for cars and other Japan-made products, the latest monthly exports figure surpassed a pre-pandemic level of 7.20 trillion yen seen in March 2019 in terms of value.

By country, exports to China stood at 1.63 trillion yen to hit the highest-ever level since comparable data became available in January 1979, underpinned by strong demand for plastic and raw materials such as copper.

Ideas:

Export growth is always good and needed. But at the same time, exports are only part of the economy, of an economy. While export growth is important, it has to be remembered that some of parts of the economy are not doing so good.

For example, while exports are growing, the services part of the economy might not be growing.

But export growth, in itself is not enough in Japan, to carry the economy to solid growth.

For example, consumer spending is around 50 percent of GPD, so if consumer is down or not even near its potential, it is doubtful that an increase in exports can have an impact overall on GPD growth.

Article: 

Imports rose 5.7 percent to 6.71 trillion yen, up for the second straight month, which led the country to see a goods trade surplus of 663.72 billion yen, the second consecutive month of black ink.

As for fiscal 2020 through March, Japan's exports sank 8.4 percent from the previous year to 69.49 trillion yen due to repercussions from the pandemic, especially in the first six months.

They posted the sharpest decline since a 17.1 percent drop logged in fiscal 2009 in the wake of the global financial crisis.

Ideas:

An increase in import might be related to an increase in consumer or supplier demand. In the case of supplier demand, preparing for the future when consumer demand begins to improve.

And or an improvement overall in logistics, meaning shipping, air and ship cargo, has gotten back to normal, and normal shipments are making it easier for suppliers to order and receive what they need.

A decrease of 8.4 percent is a big loss for Japanese exporters, but it looks like demand for Japanese products, both merchandise and intermediate products as more than made up for the losses in fiscal 2020.

Article: 

Imports in the previous business year sank 11.6 percent to 68.18 trillion yen, also the steepest fall in 11 years, mainly because of declining crude oil and other energy prices.

Both exports and imports shrank for the second successive year, which left Japan with a goods trade surplus of 1.31 trillion yen, the first black ink in three years.

All figures were compiled on a customs-cleared basis.

Ideas:

A decrease in imports again could have been related to less demand from consumers and because of that less demand from suppliers.

And then of course some of it might have been related to the disruption in supply chains related to the disruptions of shipments globally in the spring of 2020.

A trade surplus is always preferable to a trade deficit. In smaller geographic countries such as Japan and South Korea, trade surpluses are needed and important.

The US however is a trade deficit country as it imports are always more than its exports. 

Of course as the world's # 1 or # 2 economy, and size of the population and its geographic size it has a huge consumer spending base. As a result, it can afford to be a trade deficit nation, compare to smaller geographic countries including the Northern European countries which are trade surplus based economies.

Have a nice day and be safe!