Initial recaps from Reuters and Bloomberg:

  • exports fell 5.8 percent in December from a year earlier
  • annual trade deficit record for 2012
  • seventh straight month of declines for exports
  • Exports to China, the top destination for Japanese shipments, dropped 15.8 percent in the year to December (better get working on a reconciliation over the Senkaku/Diaoyu isalands) and those to Europe declined 11.1 percent.
  • ““Exports will improve this year due to the weaker yen and a pick up in the U.S. and Chinese economies,” Hiroaki Muto, senior economist at Sumitomo Mitsui Asset Management in Tokyo, said before the report. “We can expect to see a trade surplus from March or April this year.””