Japan current account deficit at highest since 2014 on oil import costs
Japan recorded its largest current account deficit since the start of 2014 in January as a jump in oil import costs offset gains in investment income, with continuing uncertainty due to the Ukraine crisis and Covid-19 pandemic.
The current account data highlighted the dependence of Japan’s resource-deficient economy on imports of commodities and raw materials, which caused trade deficit to widen.
Japan, the world’s third-largest economy, posted a current account deficit of 1.1887 trillion yen ($10.31 billion) in January, the data showed, versus economists’ median estimate of a 880 billion yen deficit in a Reuters poll.
