Japan reports worst April trade deficit on weak yen With the yen hitting multi-year lows against the dollar, some politicians have started voicing concerns over its negative impact on people's lives. Japan's fuel imports have also stayed high as most of its nuclear reactors remain off-line since the huge earthquake and tsunami in 2011 sparked the world's worst atomic accident in a generation. By region, US-bound exports in April jumped 14.8pc to 1.10 trillion yen, the highest figure since October 2008, on the back of strong shipments of automobiles. Japan's surplus with the United States soared 32.5pc to 563.0 billion yen while Japan suffered a trade deficit of 38.6 billion yen with the European Union as exports there kept falling. With China, Japan's deficit expanded by 60.2pc to 442.5 billion yen as exports rose only 0.3pc on a slowing of growth in China's economy and as political tensions between the two countries continue to weigh on sales of Japanese goods there. The Bank of Japan on Wednesday held off fresh easing measures, saying after a two-day policy meeting that a continuation of steps introduced last month would help Japan overcome deflation. The central bank said the world's third largest economy had already started picking up as exports have stopped falling due to recovering overseas economies. "Japan's economy is expected to return to a moderate recovery path, mainly against the background that domestic demand remains resilient due to the effects of monetary easing as well as various economic measures, and that growth rates of overseas economies gradually pick up," it said. But the bank acknowledged "there remains a high degree of uncertainty concerning Japan's economy, including the prospects for the European debt problem and the growth momentum of the US economy as well as the emerging and commodity-exporting economies." The yen strengthened briefly right after news that the Bank of Japan took no new easing measures but quickly fell back. The benchmark Nikkei 225 index closed up 1.6pc.