Japan's current account surplus soared 20 percent in the first half of fiscal 2003 from a year earlier to a record 8.35 trillion yen, the Finance Ministry said Wednesday in a preliminary report.
It attributed the rise to growing exports to other parts of Asia and a decline in the number of Japanese traveling overseas during the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome.
The surplus will probably remain at a high level in the second half of the fiscal year due to an expected rise in Japan's exports to China and the United States, given the end of the SARS epidemic and the U.S. economic recovery, economists said.