1st LD Writethru: Japan logs largest half-year current account surplus in 5 years

Japan posted its largest half-year current account surplus in five years in the January to June period at 8.18 trillion yen (about 65.8 billion U.S. dollars), as falling prices for crude oil lowered import costs and a weaker yen boosted overseas profits, the finance ministry said Monday.

Exports increased by 5.9 percent and imports dropped 8.8 percent from a year earlier, with a deficit of 422 billion yen in the balance of goods trade, less than the 6,201.4 billion yen logged a year earlier, the ministry said.

The surplus in the primary income account, a gauge measuring Japan's income from investments overseas, increased 26.1 percent to 10.51 trillion yen, aided by a weaker yen helping raise receipts from overseas securities investments as well as increased tourism encouraged by the weaker yen that boosted the travel account.

The travel balance in the first half of 2015 hit a surplus of 527.3 billion yen, marking the highest amount since record keeping began in 1996, the ministry's data showed.

"The current account is returning to levels seen around the 2007-2008 Lehman crisis. Drivers of growth in the current account have shifted from trade surplus to income gains and other areas such as a rise in the number of tourists," Yuichiro Nagai, an economist at Barclays Securities Japan, said.

For the month of June alone, Japan posted a current account surplus of 558.6 billion yen, marking the 12th straight month of payment balance increases, less than median forecasts for a current account surplus of 773.6 billion yen.

Japan's current account balance is one of the major gauges of the nature of Japan's foreign trade and when the nation's account is in surplus it increases Japan's net foreign assets by the corresponding amount, and a current account deficit does the reverse.

Both government and private payments are included in the calculation. Endi