Japan Trade Deficit: Ideas Later: Updated July 21, 2024.

 

Japan's trade deficit halves in 1st half of 2024 on strong exports

Article Source:  https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20240718/p2g/00m/0bu/020000c

Ideas:

As Japan is heavily dependent on exports, its seems that maybe because of the pandemic it had a significant trade imbalance after the pandemic situation.

Also contributing to the trade deficit might have been a weak Japanese yen, which inflates import prices in Japan, as Japan is resource-poor country and has to import much of what it needs from food, raw materials, and energy.

Japan seems to have built its economy on exports as maybe international trade takes priority over the domestic economy, or it seems that way.

As the Japanese domestic economy doesn't seem to grow that much, exports and foreign visitors going to Japan seem to be the two main economic drivers for the Japanese economy.

An economic driver is any economic activity that significantly increases economic growth and the overall domestic economy, outside of these two economic activities, there doesn't seem to any other solid economic activities that might be good for the Japanese economy at this time.

Foreign visitors, which is now at a record high spend a lot in Japan, as the weak Japanese yen, gives them more purchasing power which means for their respective county's current the weak Japanese yen, helps them spend more in Japan, which, again, significantly helps economic growth in Japan.

Japanese auto exports, or the Japanese auto industry, again seems to be leading the Japanese economy, as again, no other industry, other than the foreign tourist industry seems to be improving much.

Economies always go through ups and downs and Japan is no exception, except it doesn't grow that much, if at all.

The Japanese economy is a very stable economy, as it doesn't have many or almost no sudden shocks or surprises.

The Japanese yen is a major puzzle that is not going to be solved anytime soon.

Unfortunately, whatever the reasons, and again, is very complicated, is not going to be solved anytime soon, as there are many factors related to the weak Japanese yen.

Again, the US economy seems, at this time, to the the world's leader in economic growth, which is good for Japanese exporters as there is strong demand for Japanese products in the US.

The same can't be said, at this time, related to China, as maybe demand for Japanese products is not so good, and China has a lot internal economic situations that need to be solved to get its economy back to some kind of normal or even a new normal.

Have a nice day and be safe!