Japan Trade (Japanese Trade): Japan Import (Japanese Imports), Japan Export (Japanese Exports)

As a percentage of current-price GDP, the value

of Japan’s two-way foreign trade in 2003 was just over 18%, which was lesser than that of many high-income countries. The closed nature of Japan’s economy is also apparent in comparisons with other countries in Asia, such as China, which in the same year saw foreign trade reach nearly 60% of current-price GDP. This is largely owing to official and unofficial restrictions on merchandise imports, which remain in place, despite pressure from the US and other important trading partners, to protect the less efficient sectors of Japan’s industry, such as textiles, food and pulp and paper. This lack of openness to foreign trade has often been cited as one of the reasons for the persistence of structural problems in the country’s economy in general and the poor productivity of companies in the non-tradable sectors in particular.

However, the current account balance has been in surplus and the competitive strength of Japanese industry has increased steadily.
A current account balance surplus was achieved every year since 1960s except for a couple years following the oil crisis of 1973. The current account balance of Japan, as on September 2004, was estimated to be US $ 41.7 billion.