Japan books largest trade deficit in almost 5 years in January

TOKYO - Japan booked its biggest trade deficit in almost five years in January, the government said in a report on Wednesday.

According to the Finance Ministry, the deficit in the recording period stood at 1.42 trillion yen ($12.8 billion).

This marked the fourth successive month the figures had been negative and was the biggest deficit since March 2014, the ministry said.

Specially, the ministry's data showed that the value of overall exports dropped 8.4 percent from a year earlier to 5.57 trillion yen ($50.25 billion), marking the lowest figure since January 2017.

Imports in the recording month dropped 0.6 percent, the figures showed, to 6.99 trillion yen ($63.06 billion), as the costs for Japan's energy imports were lowered by a drop in the global market for crude oil.