Imports YoY

Imports YoY is the yearly % change in the value of Japan's goods imports from the same month 1 year earlier. The Ministry of Finance, Japan, publishes it through the Customs and Tariff Bureau, with comparable monthly data from 1979 recorded by country of origin. Values are CIF, covering cost, insurance and freight, in thousands of yen rounded down, summed as a full-count census with no seasonal adjustment. It covers general trade with re-imports, and excludes services and goods such as items worth 200,000 yen or less, monetary gold and travelers' effects.

Each reference month covers imports by permit, early-withdrawal approval, or warehousing approval date, not arrival date, with Provisional at 08:50 JST, meaning Japan Standard Time. Detailed, Revised and Fixed releases follow at 09:30 JST, on dates in the pre-announced annual calendar, which may change with notice. Each release also shows export value, the trade balance, country and commodity splits, and trade indexes, while later vintages replace the whole dataset. Figures move from Provisional through 9-digit Provisional and Detailed to March Revised and November Fixed next year, then freeze, with no Detailed for December imports.

The headline, meaning the total YoY figure, reflects 9 principal commodity groups, shown in the bullets below.

• MINERAL FUELS: petroleum, petroleum products, LNG, LPG and coal.
• ELECTRICAL MACHINERY: semiconductors and ICs, telephony including telephone sets and measuring instruments.
• CHEMICALS: organic chemicals and medical products.
• MACHINERY AND TRANSPORT EQUIPMENT: power-generating machines, computers, motor vehicles and parts, plus aircraft.
• MANUFACTURED GOODS: iron and steel products, nonferrous metals and textiles.
• FOODSTUFF, RAW MATERIALS AND OTHERS: fish, meat, cereals, wood, ores, clothing, furniture and scientific instruments.

Detailed data released March 28, 2024 showed January 2024 imports at 9,099,295 million yen, down 9.7% from 10,078,054 million yen a year earlier. Exports were 7,332,754 million yen, up 11.9%, and the deficit narrowed 49.9% to 1,766,541 million yen. Mineral fuels fell 22.4%, with a 25.6% share and a 6.7 point drag, as coal fell 42.9% and LNG fell 28.3%. Against that fall, transport equipment rose 19.8% on aircraft up 165.4%, and machinery rose 2.1%, so single groups can surge even when the total falls.

1. Collect: Gather all in-scope import declarations for the calendar month by permit or approval date, not arrival date.
2. Value and sum: Value each consignment CIF and add them in thousands of yen, rounded down, to get total V(t).
3. Base: Take the same calendar month 1 year earlier as base, V(t-12).
4. Change: Compute 100 times (V(t) minus V(t-12)) divided by V(t-12), with 1 decimal place, where plus means rise and minus means fall. For example, 9,099,295 minus 10,078,054 leaves -978,759, and dividing by 10,078,054 times 100 gives -9.7%. No commodity weighting enters the total, and no seasonal adjustment applies.