Mubasher: Qatar’s trade surplus with Japan rose 28.8% year-on-year in the first half of 2018, according to the Japanese Ministry of Finance's (MoF) monthly bulletin released on Thursday.

Trade surplus between the two countries amounted to JPY 711 billion ($6.3 billion) during the period between January to June, compared to JPY 552.1 billion ($4.9 billion) in the same period of the previous year.

The ministry attributed the trade surplus increase to the rise in Qatar’s exports to Japan by 26.8% to JPY 784.58 billion ($6.98 billion) during the six month period ended last June, from JPY 618.96 billion ($5.51 million) in the same period of the prior year.

Qatar’s total imports from Japan rose 10.1% year-on-year to JPY 73.58 billion ($654.9 million) in H1-18, the data showed.

As for June, trade surplus between the two countries advanced 33.6% to JPY 105.58 billion ($939.7 million), compared to JPY 79.02 billion ($703.3 million) in the same month a year earlier.

Qatar’s exports to Japan hiked 30.4% year-on-year to JPY 114.96 billion ($1.02 billion) last month, versus JPY 88.15 billion ($785.4 million) in June 2017.

On the other hand, Qatari total imports from Japan increased by 2.7% to JPY 9.37 billion ($83.4 million) in June, from JPY 9.13 billion ($81.3 million) in the same month in the year before.