Looking at the real effective exchange rate of the yen, adjusted for these factors, we see that from around 2005 to mid-2007 it depreciated by more than 20 percent, and remained at its lowest level in the past 20 years, which supported a considerable increase in Japan’s exports.
However, since the outbreak of the global financial crisis in the autumn of 2008, the yen appreciated rapidly and has recently been trading around its level in the early 2000s. This suggests that the portion of exports supported by the depreciation of the yen since the second half of the 2000s has been eliminated.