JAPAN posted 12 straight monthly balance of payments gains in June, taking the half-year surplus to its highest in five years as overseas income and tourism receipts prospered.

    June’s current account surplus was 558.6 billion yen (US$4.5 billion), the Japanese Ministry of Finance data showed yesterday, compared with a median forecast of 773.6 billion yen.

    The gain was driven by a rising primary income surplus, which measures profits from investment abroad, and a gain in the travel account due primarily to growth in tourist numbers on the back of the weak yen.

    “The current account is returning to levels seen around the 2007-2008 Lehman crisis,” said Yuichiro Nagai, economist at Barclays Securities Japan.

    “Drivers of growth in the current account have shifted from trade surplus to income gains and other areas such as a rise in the number of tourists.”

    In the first half of this year, the current account surplus stood at 8.18 trillion yen, the largest since July-December in 2010, the ministry data showed.

    Hefty returns from business and investment overseas brought a record primary income surplus of 10.5 trillion yen in January-June this year, offsetting a trade deficit of 422 billion yen.

    A record number of foreign tourists helped swing the travel account to a record surplus at 527 billion yen in the first half of 2015, the data showed.(SD-Agencies)