TOKYO, Oct 3 - Japan's current account surplus probably rose about 24 percent in August from the same month a year earlier as exports picked up and fewer Japanese travelled abroad, a poll showed on Friday. The 25 economists surveyed by produced a median forecast of a 1.3400 trillion yen ($12.09 billion) surplus, up from 1.0798 trillion yen a year before. Forecasts ranged from 1.1500 trillion yen to 1.4800 trillion. The data will be released on Thursday, October 9, at 8:50 a.m. (2350 GMT on October 8). "Exports, especially to Asia, are strong but the services deficit is shrinking because of slow growth in overseas travel," said Taro Saito, an economist at NLI Research, an arm of insurer Nippon Life Insurance. NLI Research forecast a surplus of 1.4175 trillion yen, or a year-on-year gain of 31.3 percent. Japan's exports have picked up in recent months, thanks to recoveries in major markets and strong Chinese demand for Japanese goods, boosting the trade surplus component of the current account balance. At the same time the services deficit continues to shrink as the number of Japanese travelling abroad has yet to return to the previous year's level, after declining earlier in the year due to Asia's SARS virus outbreak and post-Iraq war concerns.//