Japan posted a record current account deficit of 1.98 trillion yen ($14 billion) in January, hurt by swelling import costs that caused the resource-poor nation to register its largest-ever trade deficit, the Finance Ministry said Wednesday.

Growth in exports was far slower than that of imports, partly because Japanese firms curbed China-bound shipments due to the Lunar New Year holidays there that came earlier than usual. This translated into a whopping 3.18 trillion yen trade deficit, double the year-earlier figure.

The current account, one of the widest gauges of international trade, fell into the red for the first time since October, despite a record primary income surplus on higher foreign investment returns.

Comparable data became available in 1985, except for trade figures that date back only to 1996. Japan's largest previous current account deficit was in 2014, at 1.46 trillion yen.

Imports jumped 22.3 percent to 10 trillion yen, boosted by a rise in the value of coal and liquefied natural gas imports. Exports rose 3.4 percent to 6.82 trillion yen, helped by auto shipments.

Higher costs of imported energy, amplified by the yen's depreciation against the U.S. dollar and other currencies, cut into Japan's national wealth in recent months, at a time when exports have benefited from a rally in overseas demand as the global economy recovers from the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic.

"The current account balance is expected to return to the black in the coming months but exports will likely struggle in the current business year (to March) because of slowing overseas demand and a delayed recovery in auto production," said Shinichiro Kobayashi, a senior economist at Mitsubishi UFJ Research and Consulting.

"For now, expectations are that China's economy will get a boost from the end of the zero-COVID policy and the U.S. economy will remain resilient, which will lead the trade deficit to shrink. Another factor to watch is how crude oil prices and the yen will move, given their strong impact on imports," Kobayashi added.

The yen was 13.4 percent weaker in January than a year earlier against the dollar and 8.2 percent against the euro.

A weaker yen cuts both ways, inflating import costs to the detriment of resource-scarce Japan but also the value of returns on foreign investments by Japanese firms and overseas profits made by Japanese exporters when repatriated.

Primary income came to a surplus of 2.29 trillion yen, reflecting higher interest income amid rising overseas bond yields, the ministry data showed.

Overseas bond yields have been rising on expectations that major central banks, including the U.S. Federal Reserve, will continue to raise interest rates, though concerns have grown that aggressive hikes will hamper economic growth.

Japan reported a smaller service trade deficit of 758.4 billion yen than a year earlier, due to a roughly 14-fold increase in the travel surplus to 177.9 billion yen.

A travel surplus is achieved when the amount of money spent by foreign visitors in Japan exceeds what Japanese spent overseas.

Nearly 1.5 million foreign nationals visited Japan in January, helped by the easing of strict border control steps implemented in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The number is still roughly half of pre-pandemic levels.