TOKYO (Thomson Financial) - The business sentiment diffusion index for large
Japanese companies dropped to minus 9.3 in the first quarter from plus 0.5 in
the previous quarter, reflecting growing concern about profits amid higher
procurement cost ands uncertainty about the global economy, the results of a
quarterly government survey released Monday show.
The index is computed by subtracting the percentage of large companies
reporting deteriorating business conditions from the percentage of companies
reporting an improvement. A positive figure indicates the majority of large
companies see an improvement.
The Finance Ministry gave the following breakdown of the business sentiment
diffusion indices for the first quarter, compared with the figures for the
previous quarter:
Total - minus 9.3 vs plus 0.5
Manufacturers - plus 12.9 vs plus 5.2
Non-manufacturers - minus 7.2 vs minus 2.2
The ministry gave the following forecasts for the business sentiment
diffusion indices for the second quarter:
Total - minus 2.3
Manufacturers - minus 1.6
Non-manufacturers - minus 2.8
The ministry gave the following forecasts for the business sentiment
diffusion indices for the third quarter:
Total - plus 6.6
Manufacturers - plus 7.3
Non-manufacturers - plus 6.1
The following are the revised forecasts of pretax profit, revenue and
capital spending for the fiscal year ending March 2008 given in the latest
survey, compared with the estimates from the December survey:
All companies' pretax profit - down 2.9 percent vs down 1.0 percent
All companies' revenue - up 1.9 percent vs up 1.9 percent
All companies' capex - up 0.6 percent vs down 0.4 percent
Manufacturers' pretax profit - down 0.9 percent vs up 0.9 percent
Manufacturers' revenue - up 4.6 percent vs up 4.2 percent
Manufacturers' capex - up 2.6 percent vs up 4.7 percent
Non-manufacturers' pretax profit - down 4.5 percent vs down 2.5 percent
Non-manufacturers' revenue - up 0.7 percent vs up 0.8 percent
Non-manufacturers' capex - down 0.8 percent vs down 4.1 percent
(1 US dollar = 99.56 yen)
kaori.kaneko@thomson.com
yas/jm
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