1st LD Writethru: Japan logs current account surplus for 14th straight month in August

Japan logged a current account surplus of 1,653.1 billion yen (about 13.75 billion U.S. dollars) in August, marking the 14th straight month in black ink, government data showed Thursday.

The surplus in the reporting period expanded more than six-fold from a year earlier, as falling prices of crude oil lowered import costs and a weaker yen boosted overseas profits, according to the Finance Ministry.

Exports climbed 3.6 percent to 5,857.9 billion yen, while imports shed 4.9 percent to 6,184.1 billion yen, thus the goods trade deficit shrank 61.7 percent from the previous year to 326.1 billion yen.

The surplus in the primary income account, which reflects how much Japan earns from its foreign investments, jumped 35.0 percent to 2,051.8 billion yen, as the yen's depreciation helped raise receipts from overseas securities investments. The yen dropped against the U.S. dollar by 19.7 percent on a yearly basis in the reporting month.

The weakening yen also helped attract foreign visitors to Japan, lifting the travel balance to a surplus of 78.2 billion yen, the largest for August since comparable data became available in 1996. Endi