Published monthly by the Ministry of Finance and Bank of Japan. Updated till the month of June 2020 (published on July 30th, 2020).

Brief overview of “Customs-cleared trade”

Customs-cleared trade statistics record the value and the volume of goods traded across international borders released by the Ministry of Finance (MoF). Given the importance of international trade for Japan, the customs-cleared trade statistics is one of the key indicators in monitoring the Japanese economy. The export and import ratio of Japan’s GDP has been increasing over the last 20 years, with the ratios being at 17.5% and 17.3% respectively in 2019. In the last couple of decades, Japan’s exports of intermediate goods to its total exports have increased. Intermediate goods include parts and materials to produce the final product. This ultimately means that Japan has deepen its role in the global supply chain.

The timeliness of the data that is released also adds to its importance. Full month results are announced approximately 20 days after the end of the reported month. Full month results include a breakdown by type of goods as well as by countries. Separately, the MoF publishes the first 10 and 20 days of statistics. The statistics do not provide much detail beyond the total export and import values. However, it does indeed serve as a good leading indicator of the results for the entire month.

For more information visit the official government page

On the same day that the MoF publishes the full month’s results of customs-cleared trade, the Bank of Japan publishes real exports and imports, usually around 2 pm (JST). The real exports by regions and goods are released by the Bank of Japan three business days after the publication of the customs-cleared trade data. The monthly real exports and imports tend to have a strong positive correlation to the export and import components of the quarterly GDP statistics.

For more information visit the official government page

Source: MoF, BoJ, JMA.

The Next Release Date:August 19th,2020(Provisional July data)

August 28th, 2020 (Final June data)