Local News

Moji Customs announced trade statistics for the Kyushu region, which includes Yamaguchi and Okinawa prefectures, for the January-June 2009 period, showing that exports fell 39.9% from the previous year to 2.5164 trillion yen, the largest year-on-year rate of decline for any six-month period since 1980, when similar statistics began being kept. Imports fell during the same period by 49.0% to 2.3968 trillion yen, the second-worst rate of decline following the 49.5% plunge in the second half of 1986. This was the second consecutive six-month drop for exports, and the first downturn for imports in 11 terms.