TOKYO: Japan's exports plunged at a double-digit pace for the fourth month in a row in June, backing signs the coronavirus crisis has knocked the economy into its worst postwar recession and raising the spectre of a longer and more painful global downturn.
US-bound Japanese shipments nearly halved again due to plummeting demand for cars and autoparts, while exports to China remained weak, pointing to the absence of a strong growth engine for the world economy.
Ministry of Finance (MOF) data showed on Monday that Japan's exports dived 26.2% in June from a year earlier, bigger than a 24.9% decline seen by economists in a Reuters poll. The contraction slowed slightly from the prior month's 28.3% fall - the worst downturn since September 2009.
Global demand for cars and other durable goods has sunk since March as the pandemic prompted many countries to lockdown. Overall shipments to the United States - Japan's key market - dived 46.6%, due to 63.3% decline in exports of automobiles, 56% drop in airplane engines and 58.3% fall in car parts.
In 2018, the United States was Japan's largest export market, followed closely by China and led by cars and car parts. Exports to China, Japan's largest trading partner, fell 0.2% in the year to June, as declines in shipments of chip-making machinery and chemical materials more than offset increase in nonferrous metal and car shipments.
Shipments to Asia, which account for more than half of Japanese exports, declined 15.3%, and exports to the European Union fell 28.4%. Japan slipped into recession for the first time in 4-1/2 years in the first quarter and is on course for its deepest postwar slump as the health crisis hurt businesses and consumers.
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