M/M increase in Japanese Exports Highest since 2010

Japan’s exports surged by the most since 2010 as the yen weakened and shipments to the U.S. jumped, boosting Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s campaign to revive the world’s third-largest economy.

Overseas shipments increased 10.1 percent from a year earlier, the Finance Ministry said in Tokyo today. The median estimate of 29 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News was for a 6.4 percent gain. Shipments to China are recovering after tumbling last year during a flare-up in tensions over a maritime jurisdiction dispute, the report showed.

Today’s data may help to sustain confidence in Abe’s efforts to jump-start the economy with fiscal and monetary stimulus and a rollback of regulations restricting business. Volatility in stocks and bonds has threatened to damp sentiment as Abe and central bank Governor Haruhiko Kuroda seek to pull the nation out of a 15-year deflationary malaise.

Currency weakness “will keep fueling Japanese exports,” said Long Hanhua Wang, an economist at Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc in Tokyo. At the same time, weakness in the Chinese and European economies may cap the nation’s trade gains, the analyst said.

Bloomberg

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