Japan trade figures, perhaps not so bad The weaker yen hasn't done much for Japan's exports so far, with preliminary data out today showing another record in Japan's trade deficit. Exports were 6.4 per cent higher, year-on-year, in January and failed to raise as much as imports (up 7.3 per cent). This brought the trade deficit to Y1.63bn. Societe Generale say not to worry yet, however. Firstly, those figures are not seasonally-adjusted. Month-on-month seasonally-adjusted numbers show the trade deficit shrank from Y678.9bn in January from a revised Y783.8bn in December. Also, export growth has actually improved markedly: SocGen's analysts write: As we expected, export growth improved on the back of recovering global economic conditions, especially in China and the US. Exports to China grew 3.0% yoy, the first growth in 8 months, led by organic chemicals (+55.8% yoy) and nonferrous metals (+59.2% yoy). However, exports of motor vehicles remained weak, down by 60.4% yoy. Exports to the US were also strong, growing by 10.9% yoy, led by motor vehicles (+10.5% yoy), motor vehicles parts (+29.9% yoy) and power generating machinery (+23.3% yoy). Although a recovery in exports to China may have been influenced by the fact that the Chinese New Year was in February this year rather than in January as in 2012, the 3m-o-3m rate of export growth supports the interpretation that a recovery has begun: it turned positive (1.7% in seasonally adjusted terms) for the first time in seven months. At the same time, they say the weaker yen is clearly already pushing up the value of imports, because volumes of imports actually fell 1 per cent in January. So it may just take a while longer for exports to respond to the weaker yen.