Japan's trade balance in June was in the black for the first time in 2 months. Low crude oil prices have pushed down the overall value of imports.

Officials at the Finance Ministry say the trade surplus was 693 billion yen, or about 6.5 billion dollars.

The value of exports shrank 7.4 percent from a year earlier. Steel was down 24 percent.

Imports also fell. They were down nearly 19 percent.
Crude oil, natural gas and other mineral resources plunged more than 30 percent.

The trade balance for the first half of this year has turned out to be 17 billion dollars in the black. That's the first biannual surplus since the latter half of 2010.

Published Date:2016-07-25