Bank of Japan Releases Results of September Business Survey
October 1, 2009
| Bm | Bnm | Sm | Snm | All | |
| Dec 1998 | -49 | -39 | -56 | -43 | |
| Dec 1999 | -17 | -19 | -32 | -28 | |
| Dec 2000 | 10 | -10 | -16 | -23 | |
| Dec 2001 | -38 | -22 | -49 | -39 | -40 |
| Dec 2002 | -9 | -16 | -33 | -36 | -28 |
| Dec 2003 | 11 | -9 | -13 | -28 | -15 |
| Dec 2004 | 22 | 11 | 5 | -14 | 1 |
| Dec 2005 | 21 | 17 | 7 | -17 | 5 |
| Dec 2006 | 25 | 22 | 12 | -4 | 10 |
| Dec 2007 | 19 | 16 | 2 | -12 | 2 |
| Mar 2008 | 11 | 12 | -6 | -15 | -4 |
| Jun 2008 | 5 | 10 | -10 | -20 | -7 |
| Sep 2008 | -3 | 1 | -17 | -24 | -14 |
| Dec 2008f | -4 | -1 | -25 | -31 | -19 |
| Dec 2008a | -24 | -9 | -29 | -29 | -24 |
| Mar 2009f | -36 | -14 | -48 | -42 | -38 |
| Mar 2009a | -58 | -31 | -57 | -42 | -46 |
| Jun 2009f | -51 | -30 | -63 | -52 | -52 |
| Jun 2009a | -48 | -29 | -57 | -44 | -45 |
| Sep 2009f | -30 | -21 | -53 | -45 | -41 |
| Sep 2009a | -33 | -24 | -52 | -39 | -38 |
| Dec 2009a | -21 | -17 | -44 | -40 | -34 |
The Bank of Japan survey of businesses, known as the Tankan, highlight the emergence from recessionary conditions, but forecast growth in sales, earnings, and business spending highlight the extremely weak and fragile conditions following Japan’s worst postwar recession. Diffusion indices in the above table were derived by subtracting the percent of respondents calling business conditions “unfavorable” from the percent characterizing such as “favorable.” The abbreviations for big manufacturers and big non-manufacturers are Bm and Bnm, while Sm and Snm designate small-si
zed manufacturers and non-manufacturers. “All” signifies all big, medium, and small firms in the survey. The suffix “a” stands for actual, and “f” signifies a forecast of the actual made three months earlier. The September Tankan readings were significantly better than the prior Bank of Japan business survey, not quite as improved as respondents in the June survey had predicted, but along lines of recent analyst forecasts. Projected fiscal 2009 growth in sales and profits as well as planned capital investment spending were revised downward from what survey participants had said three months ago, however. The latest sales and profit forecasts for all firms call for respective declines of 10.5% and 19.3%. Planned investment by all firms is 28.8% less than spent in Fiscal 2008. Big firms are ahead of small ones in transitioning to a recovery, the same pattern that occurred after the last recession and depicted in the upper rows of the above table.
Copyright Larry Greenberg 2009. All rights reserved. No secondary distribution without express permission.
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