Japan’s sinking exports risk of prolonged downturn

Slow demand: Cyclists riding past a container ship in Yokohama. Japan’s exports dived 26.2% in June from a year earlier, bigger than a 24.9% decline seen by economists in a Reuters poll. — Bloomberg

TOKYO: Japan’s exports plunged at a double-digit pace for the fourth month in a row in June, backing signs the coronavirus crisis has knocked the economy into its worst postwar recession and raising the spectre of a longer and more painful global downturn.

US-bound Japanese shipments nearly halved again due to plummeting demand for cars and autoparts, while exports to China remained weak, pointing to the absence of a strong growth engine for the world economy.