
TOKYO -- The growing number of foreign visitors to Japan has lifted the country's first-half travel balance surplus to a record high, recent data shows.
According to preliminary balance of payments statistics released by Japan's Finance Ministry on Thursday, the country's current-account surplus stood at 11.5 trillion yen ($101.1 billion) for the April-September period, up 11.7% from a year earlier. The first-half surplus reached the highest level since fiscal 2007.