Japan

Trade

In 2016, the total exports of Japan amounted to US$ 644.9 billion, while total imports amounted to US$ 606.9 billion.

The countrys exports were generally composed of machineries and electronics (33.0 percent) and transportation (25.0 percent) sectors. Others major exports were metals (7.6 percent), chemicals (7.4 percent), plastic or rubber (5.2 percent), and stone and glass (3.24 percent). Machineries and electronics also topped the imports of Japan at 24.3 percent, together with fuels (18.3 percent). Transportation was only 4.7 percent, while chemicals was slightly higher than exports at 9.37 percent. Japan did not also import much of plastic or rubber (3.0 percent) and stone and glass (2.4 percent) than it exported.

In terms of stages of processing, most Japanese exports were capital goods (47.3 percent), consumer goods (25.6 percent), intermediate goods (19.8 percent), and raw materials (1.4 percent). Japans imports, however, were mostly composed of consumer goods (34.2 percent), capital goods (27.5 percent), raw materials (21.4 percent) and intermediate goods (15.3 percent).

Top exports destinations of Japanese products include USA and China as the largest export partners with 20.3 percent and 17.7 percent shares, respectively. Korea followed at 7.2 percent and Hong Kong at 6.1 percent. Japan, on the other hands, received more products coming from China with 25.8 percent of the total imports. USA barely shared half of the shares of China at 11.4 percent. Australia and Korea only shared 5.0 percent and 4.1 percent of the imports.

On services, in terms of balance of payment, imports amounted to US$ 184.7 billion, while exports reached lower at US$ 173.8 billion.

Investment

In 2017, Japan no longer ranked among the top 20 countries who received the most FDI, unlike the previous year where it placed 5th. Japans FDI stock was valued at US$ 207.5 billion, larger than 2016s US$ 190.5 billion. FDI inward flow, however, declined from US$ 11.4 billion in 2016 to US$ 10.4 billion in 2017.

As of 2017, USA was the countrys source of FDI inflows, with a share of 22.3 percent. The rest include France (15.3 percent), Netherlands (15.2 percent), Singapore (15.1 percent), Cayman Islands (10.3 percent), Switzerland (4.6 percent), South Korea (3.7 percent), China (3.7 percent), Taiwan (2.8 percent), Germany (2.5 percent), and Luxembourg (1.4 percent).

Most of these investments were on electrical machinery (33.0 percent), transportation equipment production (23.3 percent), general machinery (13.5 percent), finance and insurance (9.4 percent), services (8.9 percent), transport (4.3 percent), and real estate (2.9 percent).

References:

https://wits.worldbank.org/CountryProfile/en/Country/JPN/Year/LTST/Summary (Accessed on 28 October 2018).

https://en.portal.santandertrade.com/establish-overseas/japan/foreign-investment (Accessed on 28 October 2018).