Japan Posts Record Trade Surplus of $5.02 Billion

Japan posted a record monthly trade surplus of $5.02 billion in June, boosting its overall surplus for the first six months of 1985 to $17.66 billion, the Finance Ministry reported Tuesday.

In trade with the United States, Japan reported a surplus of $3.33 billion in June and $16.78 billion for the first half of the year, helped by rising auto exports.

The June surplus in trade with the United States was slightly below the $3.41-billion surplus in May and the record $3.46-billion surplus in April, while the six-month figure was well above the $14.52 billion in the first six months of 1984.

For all of 1984, Japanese sales to the United States exceeded U.S. shipments to Japan by $36.8 billion.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, who canceled a tour of Europe last year because of domestic political pressures, prepared to leave Friday for the long-delayed trip with a message that Japan cares about all of its trading partners.

Nakasone “wants to correct the picture” that Japan’s attentions have been devoted only to the United States and Asia and to show that “Japan attaches great importance to Europe,” a senior Foreign Ministry official said.

Japan’s overall June surplus exceeded the previous monthly high of $4.65 billion set in December, 1984, and compared to a $4.01-billion surplus in June, 1984.

The six-month surplus, however, was lower than the $20.11 billion in 1984’s second half. The surplus for all of 1984 was $33.61 billion.

In U.S. trade, Japanese car exports continued to run more than 20% ahead of the figures for a year ago. Japan had imposed “voluntary restraints” on these exports for four years, but when they expired April 1, the start of Japan’s fiscal year, the United States decided not to request an extension.

In an effort to reduce trade frictions, Japan adopted its own fiscal 1985 U.S. export limit of 2.3 million cars, up 25% from fiscal 1984. But that increase has been criticized as too steep in the United States.

Car exports to the United States totaled $1.67 billion in June, down from $1.79 billion in May and $2.09 billion in April but up 29.6% from June, 1984.

All exports to the U.S. market in 1985’s first half climbed 8% from a year ago to $30.19 billion, while imports from the United States fell 0.2% to $13.41 billion.

Japan’s overall exports totaled $14.44 billion in June, down 2.2% from June, 1984, and imports amounted to $9.42 billion, down 12.4%.

Exports, Imports Drop

January-June exports totaled $82.25 billion, down 0.3% from 1984’s first half, and imports were $64.59 billion, down 6.4%.

Japan’s exports have been sluggish in recent months, partly because of a cooling off of economic growth in the United States.

Japan had a trade surplus of $4.84 billion with the nations of the European Economic Community in the first half of 1985. The surplus for all of 1984 was more than $10 billion.

Nakasone’s weeklong schedule for the European tour, announced formally on Tuesday, will take him to Paris, Rome and Brussels, where he will meet with government leaders and with the head of the European Economic Community, have an audience with Pope John Paul II and have a reunion with his former French teacher.

Difficult Relations

The Foreign Ministry official, who spoke on condition that he not be named, said relations with Europe have sometimes been difficult and that Japan hopes “personal contacts between leaders will smooth out” the problems.

Most conflicts have concerned trade, the topic expected to dominate discussions.

The European Economic Community issued a declaration on June 19 claiming that “Japan continues to remain out of step with her trading partners in terms of propensity to import manufactures.”

Japan replied two days later that the Common Market was “failing to realize that it is only natural for trade structures to differ from country to country.”

Japan’s statement said that to ignore such factors as the strong dollar “and blame everything on the resultant Japanese surpluses is clearly self-serving and obviously unacceptable.”