Analysts at Nomura are forecasting nominal export growth of 6.7% y-o-y, 9.5% m-o-m in April for Japanese economy while estimating a trade surplus (original series) of JPY344.9bn and a seasonally adjusted trade surplus of JPY272.3bn.
Key Quotes
“Nominal exports in the first 20 days of April increased by 10.0% y-o-y (compared with 5.8% in the first 20 days of March) and nominal imports grew by 12.7% (compared with 9.9% in the first 20 days of March).”
“The first 20 days of April included one more business day than the same period a year earlier and the remainder of April included one less business day. We believe growth in nominal exports and imports in April as a whole is likely to be lower than that for the first 20 days of the month, as the year-on-year difference in the number of business days is likely to boost growth in the first 20 days and weigh on growth for the remainder of the month.”
“Adjusting our April nominal import/export estimates for corporate goods price index data for April (2.2% y-o-y), import prices (5.0%) and seasonal factors gives us our forecasts for real exports of 2.8% m-o-m and for real imports of 1.9%. If our forecasts are realized, full-month exports and imports will have risen by 1.5% and 0.6%, respectively, from the January-March average. Real exports (GDP-basis) rose 0.6% q-o-q in January-March (2.2% in October-December 2017), the growth rate slowed due to the effects of slower growth in overseas economies. However, we expect the April data to suggest that this weakness is temporary.”
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