Japan's income account surplus exceeded its trade surplus in 2005 for the first time since records started being taken in 1985, which means the country earned more from sales of assets than it did from sales of goods to the rest of the world, the Finance Ministry said Monday.
This was because overseas securities continued to reap gains while the trade surplus was trimmed by higher crude oil prices, the ministry said in a preliminary report on Japan's current account balance.
The income account balance, which covers income from investments in foreign securities, earnings of Japanese companies' overseas units and payments by foreign employers in Japan, rose 22.5 percent to a record 11.36 trillion yen.