Exporters are in danger of being left behind by a global trade recovery as the nation's change in government ushers in a tolerance for exchange-rate gains that threaten to erode their profits.
Exports fell 36 percent in August from a year earlier, the Finance Ministry said Thursday, marking the 11th decline in a row. The drop was exacerbated by the yen's 17 percent surge against the dollar in the past year, making Japanese goods more expensive abroad and hurting the value of repatriated earnings.
Japan's currency jumped to a seven-month high last week after Finance Minister Hirohisa Fujii, whose Democratic Party of Japan won elections promising to boost consumers' purchasing power, said he didn't support a "weak yen." The comments suggested a change from the Liberal Democratic Party, which ruled for most of the past 55 years supporting the exporters that led growth.