The surplus largely owes to the sharp decline in international energy prices. In early 2014, Japan ran a sizable trade deficits of well over 1 trillion yen, but the deficits has become relatively negligible in the last few months. Having said that, the fact that Japan is still running a trade deficit despite the sharp decline in commodity prices and the ongoing yen depreciation is rather shocking for those who know the glory days of Japan as the world's export house.
Japan's trade balance in goods dropped in November. The reason is production capacity in Japan is not growing much due to the lack of capital investments and a persistent labor shortage. On the demand side however, we expect the domestic demand to stay relatively resilient in the next 18 months till early 2017. What Japan cannot supply domestically will be provided through imports and the result should be a deterioration in the trade balance.