TOKYO, Feb 20: Japan posted a record trade deficit in January, data showed Monday, as fuel imports rose following last year’s nuclear disaster while exports were hit by a strong yen and slumping demand in Europe.

The January deficit came in at 1.475 trillion yen ($18.5 billion), the highest since records began in 1979, the finance ministry said.

The record figure comes after Japan registered its first annual trade deficit in 31 years in 2011, and triggered warnings that the country was likely to see more negative figures throughout the year.

The January statistic was more than triple the year-before shortfall of 479.4 billion yen and far exceeded the previous monthly record of 967.9 billion yen in January 2009 during the global financial crisis.

It was the fourth straight monthly deficit but in line with a 1.468 trillion shortfall forecast in polls by Dow Jones Newswires and the Nikkei business daily. The Nikkei 225 index closed the day 1.08 per cent higher.

Japan’s overall exports tumbled 9.3 per cent to 4.510 trillion yen last month because of lower shipments of semiconductors and other electronic devices.

“We expect this trend of deficit to continue until early 2013” with demand for fossil fuel power generation staying strong while the slow global economy and the high yen hurt exports, said Barclays Capital economist Yuichiro Nagai.

Imports surged 9.8 per cent to 5.985 trillion yen, with purchases of liquefied natural gas shooting up 74.3 per cent and coal rising 26.5 per cent.

Demand for fossil fuels has surged in Japan after the March 11 earthquake-tsunami disaster sparked the world’s worst nuclear accident in 25 years, leading the government to take many atomic reactors offline.

Satoshi Osanai, economist at Daiwa Institute of Research, said “the trade deficit is likely to continue” for the time being, adding that Europe’s debt woes have also dealt Japan a blow.

“The US economy is underpinning (Japanese) exports, as seen in higher US-bound shipments of automobiles, but demand from Europe is weak,” he said. Japan’s surplus with the European Union in January dived 98.9 per cent to 700 million yen, with shipments falling 7.7 per cent to 531.3 billion yen.

Exports of automobiles dived 29.7 per cent and electronic parts slumped 30.2 per cent.

European demand has slumped owing to the region’s debt crisis, which threatens to plunge the global economy back into recession.

With the United States, Japan’s trade surplus fell 7.6 per cent to 265.3 billion yen.

Japan logged a trade deficit of 357.1 billion yen with the rest of Asia, the first shortfall in three years. It ran a record deficit of 587.9 billion yen with its biggest trading partner China, due partly to the Lunar New Year break there.

With the Middle East, the source of most of Japan’s oil, the deficit rose 13.6 per cent to hit 988 billion yen, while the shortfall with Australia, another key energy source, was 20 per cent higher at 298 billion yen Japan’s purchases of LNG from the Middle East rose more than 60 per cent by quantity and nearly 120 per cent by value. Crude import costs were 9.2 per cent higher.

But while Nagai at Barclays expects the negative trade balances to continue, he said. —AFP