TOKYO, March 16 (Xinhua) -- Japan logged a trade deficit of 897.7 billion yen (6.73 billion U.S. dollars) in February, owing to soaring import costs further inflated by a weak yen, the government said in a report on Thursday.

According to the Finance Ministry, the country's imports increased 8.3 percent from a year earlier to 8.55 trillion yen (64.14 billion dollars), a record for February, while exports climbed 6.5 percent to 7.65 trillion yen (57.42 billion dollars), also marking a record for February, the ministry's preliminary data showed.

The ministry also said Japan reported negative trade figures for the 19th straight month.

A weaker yen continued to inflate the value of imports, including coal, liquefied natural gas and crude oil, the ministry said, adding the Japanese currency was 13.5 percent lower than a year earlier relative to the U.S. dollar.

Japan, meanwhile, booked a trade surplus of 530.5 billion yen (3.97 billion dollars) with the United States, owing to an uptick in shipments of cars, medicine and machinery.

Exports, for their part, leapt 14.9 percent to 1.46 trillion yen (10.95 billion dollars) and imports rose 6.6 percent to 925.6 billion yen (6.94 billion dollars), in the recording period.

With Japan's major trading partner China, the country's trade balance came to a deficit of 209.8 billion yen (1.57 billion dollars), the ministry said, owing to marginally more exports than imports, during the reporting period.

Imports totaled 1.53 trillion yen (11.48 billion dollars), down 0.6 percent from a year earlier, while exports dropped 10.9 percent to 1.32 trillion yen (9.90 billion dollars), the ministry said.

Japan in February ran a trade surplus of 392.3 billion yen (2.94 billion dollars) with the rest of Asia including China, and booked a 119.7 billion yen (898.87 million dollars) deficit with the European Union (EU), the ministry's data showed.