Any day, week, month, quarter, year now... that J-Curve 'recovery' will come bounding over the horizon and save the Japanese economy from its inevitable death spiral... for now, presented with little comment aside for historical confirmation (as even Goldman Sachs has now given up on hope of a bounce), Japan's largest (seasonally-adjusted) Balance of Payment Trade Deficit ever...
[7]
Must be the weather...
As Bloomberg notes, this seems related to the tax hike...
Consumers splurged on items such as refrigerators and computers in March before the 3 percentage point tax rise, boosting imports already climbing due to a weaker yen and nuclear plant closures pushing up energy costs. A slide into a sustained deficit could make Japan more reliant on overseas funding to service the world’s biggest debt burden.
But... don't worry...
“It’d be a problem if the government fails to demonstrate a clear path for budget consolidation should Japan fall into a structural current account deficit,” Tsutomu Saito, an economist at Daiwa Institute of Research in Tokyo
Oh yeah - they have a plan.
Goldman provides a little more color (and it's just as uninspiring)...
For FY2013 as a whole, the current account recorded a surplus of +¥789.9bn but was far lower than the +¥4.2tn in FY2012 and the lowest since comparable records became available in FY1985.
The breakdown of the March balance of payments (non-adjusted) shows the trade deficit widening to -¥1.13tn (February: -¥533.4bn), as export growth slowed to +6.2% yoy (February: +15.7%) and import growth accelerated +23.2% (February: +14.1%). The services deficit narrowed to -¥58.4bn (February: -¥193.4bn).