Japan's Trade Deficit With Russia Up 163% to $5.1Bln in April-September: Finance Ministry

TOKYO (Sputnik) - Japan's trade deficit with Russia jumped 163% to 750.5 billion yen ($5.1 billion) in the first half of the 2022 fiscal yea, which started on April 1, compared with the same period last year, according to data released by the Japanese finance ministry on Wednesday.

Data showed that exports to Russia fell by 46.9% to 232.4 billion yen, while imports from Russia increased by 36.1% to reach 982.8 billion yen.

Japan's exports of rubber products to Russia decreased by 91.8%, exports of semiconductor parts by 96.6%, playback and recording video equipment by 98.8%. In addition, car exports, which account for 58% of total Japanese exports to Russia, decreased by 41.6% and auto parts by 88.4%.

At the same time, imports of food products from Russia showed an increase of almost 30%, imports of energy resources increased by 51.9%, including a 90% increase in liquefied natural gas import.

Food and energy prices have been growing for 13 months in a row, coupled with inflation and historic lows of exchange rate of the Japanese currency against the US dollar.