The Japanese Finance Ministry said Monday that the world's third largest economy logged a goods trade surplus of 823.47 billion yen (around 7.48 billion U.S. dollars) on a customs-cleared basis for the third straight month of black trade balance.

The ministry said in a preliminary report that the sharp decline in imports values brought by the weakening crude oil prices contributed to the largest trade surplus since March 2010.

The imports in the reporting month decreased 23.3 percent to 5.07 trillion yen for the 16th straight monthly fall, while the value of exports was down 10.1 percent from a year earlier to 5.89 trillion yen for the seventh straight month of decline, according to the report.