Japanese firms credit foreign demand for recovery

Japanese firms credit foreign demand for recovery

Agence France-Presse, Tokyo

Most major Japanese firms credit their own cost-cutting and
overseas demand for the country's economic recovery, while
government reforms have done little to help, according to a poll
in the Asahi Shimbun Sunday.

Eighty-two out of 100 major firms surveyed said strong
overseas demand was the main reason for the recovery, while 77
cited internal restructuring, according to the poll of leading
companies such as Toyota Motor, Canon and IBM Japan.

Only three firms credited the Bank of Japan's easy monetary
policy for easing deflation worries, the same number who said the
government's push to dispose of bad loans had helped boost the
economy.

"This recovery is due to internal company efforts, not
(government) economic stimulus," Aeon Co. Ltd. executive managing
director Yoichi Kimura told the daily.

The survey of 50 manufacturers and 50 non-manufacturers was
taken in late May and early June, the paper said.

The poll showed 70 firms expected revenues to increase in the
year to March from a year ago, while 77 expected recurring
profits to improve.

Seventy-one said they thought consumer spending would
gradually increase, more than double the number who thought so
just eight months earlier.

The survey is the latest indicator of brightness in Japan's
economy, fed by overseas demand for high-tech goods and autos.

Japan's consumer confidence hit a near 13-year high in May,
with the key index rising 2.9 points from April to 48.3,
supported by better prospects for employment and earnings, the
Cabinet Office said Friday.

It followed announcements Thursday that wholesale prices rose
1.1 percent, the biggest increase since October 1997, and that
core private sector machinery orders rose 11.8 percent in April
from a month earlier.

Japan's gross domestic product grew an annualized 6.1 percent
in January-March from the previous quarter, following a 7.3
percent rate the quarter earlier, the nation's strongest growth
in 13 years.