Finance Ministry officials apologized Thursday for mistakenly releasing national merchandise trade data on the ministry's Web site a day earlier than scheduled.
The data appeared on the Web site around 6 p.m. Wednesday, then was withdrawn at around 10 p.m. after officials were notified by an outside party, according to the ministry.
"It is our duty to announce statistics at a scheduled time," a ministry official said. "We are very sorry (for the error). We will make efforts so that it will not happen again."
Someone had incorrectly set the timer controlling the automatic release of the data on the Web, the official said.
In response to the foul up, the Finance Ministry has established an in-house team to check all its information disclosure systems, Vice Finance Minister Toshiro Muto told a separate news conference later in the day.