Japan's current account surplus shrinks 63.1% in first half of 2022

The Finance Ministry said that Japan's current account surplus shrank by 63.1% in the first half of 2022 from a year earlier, to 3.51 trillion yen $25.9 billion, a major goods trade deficit due to a higher oil price and weak yen.

The fall in the current account surplus was the second steepest for a half-year period after the collapse of the U.S. securities firm Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in the second half of 2008, according to the ministry's preliminary report.

The current account balance is one of the widest gauges of international trade.

The country had a goods trade deficit of 5.67 trillion yen, the second largest deficit since comparable data became available in 1996, and a service trade deficit that increased to 2.49 trillion yen from 2.09 trillion yen in the first half of 2021, according to the ministry.

The data showed that primary income, which represents returns on overseas investments, rose to a surplus of 12.87 trillion yen, up 22.4% year on year.

In June alone, the country logged a current account deficit of 132.4 billion yen, dipping into the red for the first time in five months due to the goods trade balance going into the red, according to the ministry.