Afp, Tokyo :
Major Japanese manufacturers are feeling optimistic for the first time since the pandemic began, a key survey showed Thursday, marking a further improvement after business confidence plunged last year.
The Bank of Japan’s Tankan business survey, a quarterly poll of about 10,000 companies, showed a reading of 5 among big manufacturers. A positive figure means more manufacturers see business conditions as favourable than those that consider them unfavourable.
The upbeat reading beat a market consensus estimate of minus 1 and is the first positive reading since September 2019, before the coronavirus began to wreak havoc on the world’s economy.
Three months ago, the same survey showed a reading of minus 10, up from minus 27 in the September survey and minus 34 in June — the lowest level since the global financial crisis more than a decade ago.
The short-term business sentiment survey is considered to be the broadest indicator of how Japan Inc. is faring, and comes after the country lifted a pandemic state of emergency in the Tokyo area on March 22.Despite a spike in Covid-19 infections over the winter, Japan has seen a comparatively small outbreak overall with around 9,000 deaths, and has avoided imposing the blanket lockdowns seen in other countries.
