Japan’s travel surplus in 2020 shrank to nearly a fifth year-on-year, the first decline since balancing the balance sheet in 2015 as international travel bans had a huge impact on incoming visitors amid the coronavirus pandemic showed Monday.

The total amount for travel, which reflects the amount of money foreign visitors spend in Japan compared to Japanese overseas spending, fell 79.2 percent from a record 2.70 trillion yen in 2019 to 562.1 billion yen (5.3 billion US Dollars), comparable annual data have been available since 1996, the ministry said in a preliminary report.

An arrival lobby for international flights at Kansai International Airport in Osaka Prefecture is deserted on November 4, 2020 amid the novel coronavirus pandemic. (Kyodo) == Kyodo

Still, Japan’s travel record went black for the sixth consecutive year in 2020. In 2015, the balance sheet recorded its first black ink of 1.09 trillion yen since data collection began in 1996, following a deficit of 44.4 billion yen in 2014.

Since 2011, when a massive earthquake, tsunami, and subsequent nuclear crisis in Fukushima, northeast Japan helped increase the travel deficit slightly to 1.30 trillion yen, the country’s annual travel balance had continued to improve through 2019, with the number of foreign visitors increased steadily.

The current account surplus for the year, one of the broadest measures of international trade, fell 13.8 percent to 17.70 trillion yen from 2019, the lowest level since 16.52 trillion yen in 2015. It was 5.8 in the previous year Percent increased.

In 2020, for the fifth year in a row, the goods trade surplus was in surplus, almost eightfold from the previous year, rising to 3.05 trillion yen.

The impact of a 15.0 percent drop in imports due to falls in the price of crude oil and other energy resources outpaced that of an 11.4 percent decline in exports amid sluggish demand for Japanese products such as automobiles and auto parts due to the pandemic.

With the poor performance of the travel balance, the services trade, which includes cargo shipping, ran a deficit of 3.54 trillion yen after the initial surplus of 124.8 billion yen in 2019. It was the largest red ink since soaring 3.81 trillion yen in 2012.

The primary income balance, which reflects the return on foreign investment, was in surplus of 20.72 trillion yen, the fourth largest since 1996, despite a 3.2 percent decline from the record high of 21.40 trillion yen in 2019, the first decline in four years.

Many countries put extensive travel restrictions in place in response to the global spread of infections after the virus was first discovered in China in late 2019.

In 2020, 4.12 million foreigners visited Japan, which in recent years has promoted inbound tourism as a pillar of its growth strategy to revitalize the regional economy, a record of 87.1 percent compared to 31.88 million the previous year, according to the Japan Tourism Agency recorded.

Japan was originally supposed to host the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games last summer, but has been postponed for a year due to the pandemic.

Foreign visitors, largely made up of tourists from China, South Korea, and Taiwan, had continued to grow through 2019, when the number hit a record high for the seventh consecutive year.

In December alone, Japan posted a current account surplus of 1.17 trillion yen, more than double the 544.9 billion yen last year, making it the 78th straight month of black ink.

For the month the country had a goods trade surplus of 965.1 billion yen and a services trade deficit of 343.5 billion yen. The primary income was in surplus of 649.2 billion yen.

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