**A key survey of Japanese manufacturers has indicated that confidence is continuing to return to businesses.**The Bank of Japan’s Tankan index found that business confidence had improved for the fourth straight quarter.
The news came as troubled Toyota saw a 50.7% jump in domestic car sales last month, industry figures showed.
And in further positive news, shares in Dai-ichi Life rose 14% as trading began in the world’s largest stock market listing for two years.
Right direction
The Tankan, which surveys 10,000 firms, measures the percentage of companies that think business conditions are good, minus those that believe they are bad.
The survey found that sentiment among major manufacturers was now at its highest level since September 2008. In March the reading was -14, against minus -25 in December.
Sentiment among big non-manufacturers also improved to -14, from -21 in December.
Although the survey shows that there is still a lot of pessimism among business and industry, analysts point out that confidence is at least moving in the right direction.
And the results are significantly better than the -58 recorded among major manufacturers in March last year.
Large manufacturers plan to cut capital investment by 0.9% over the next 12 months, compared to a revised 30% in the previous year.
There was also a sharp rise in the number of major manufacturers forecasting a jump in earnings. Just over 49.3% expect profits to rise this year, against 21.5% in the survey last year.
Market debut
Investor sentiment in Japan was also buoyed by Dai-ichi Life’s $11bn (£7.2bn) listing, the largest since Visa’s $19.7bn initial public offering (IPO) in 2008.
Shares in Japan’s second largest life insurer opened at 160,000 yen, above the 140,000 yen price for the IPO.
Meanwhile, Toyota recorded a 50.7% year-on-year jump in sales in March despite the carmaker being hit by global safety recalls this year.
Toyota sold 204,514 vehicles last month compared with 146,145 a year earlier, the Japan Automobile Dealers Association said. Sales of Toyota’s luxury Lexus brand almost tripled to 4,919 units.
The sharp rise in Toyota’s March sales was helped by orders for the petrol-electric Prius hybrid that the carmaker received months in advance, before the recall crisis. This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.