Combined earnings at Japan's listed companies are expected to improve after they were halved in the year to March 2002, because of poor sales, restructuring costs and investment losses, a report said Saturday.
A survey of 618 listed non-financial firms showed the total of their group pre-tax profits in the year to March plunged 50.9 percent from the preceding year to Japanese yen 5,587 billion (US$44 billion), the Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported.
Their consolidated net earnings relapsed into Japanese yen 296 billion in the red from a black-ink total of Japanese yen 436 billion, the business daily said.
The newspaper attributed the poor performance to stagnant sales, reflecting deflation and a slump in the information-technology sector, massive costs required for such restructuring measures as early retirement plans and consolidations of facilities, and appraisal losses in shareholdings.
But the earnings are expected to rebound sharply in the year to March 2003 now that "negative assets" have been disposed of, the report said.
For the year to March 2003, the pre-tax profits of the 618 firms are projected to jump 93.9 percent to Japanese yen 10.836 trillion and their net earnings are estimated to post a profit of Japanese yen 5.636 trillion.
The companies accounted for nearly 40 percent of all the publicly traded non-financial firms whose fiscal years end in March.
Even factoring in the firms that have not yet released their earnings for the year to March 2002, the possibility remains open that the total figure will show an aggregate net loss of several hundreds of billions of yen, the report said.
Of 17 manufacturing sectors covered in the survey, 13 registered consolidated net losses and declines in consolidated pre-tax profit. Seven major industrial electronics firms, including Fujitsu Ltd, had combined group net losses of just over Japanese yen 1.9 trillion, due to a slump in demand for mobile phones, personal computers and other high-tech goods.
A growing number of companies also rushed to book impairment losses on real estate holdings and valuation write-downs of shareholdings, aiming to put unrealiSed balance sheet losses behind them, the daily said.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)
EYE ON STRAIT: The US spending bill ‘doubles security cooperation funding for Taiwan,’ while also seeking to counter the influence of China US President Joe Biden on Saturday signed into law a US$1.2 trillion spending package that includes US$300 million in foreign military financing to Taiwan, as well as funding for Taipei-Washington cooperative projects. The US Congress early on Saturday overwhelmingly passed the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act 2024 to avoid a partial shutdown and fund the government through September for a fiscal year that began six months ago. Under the package, the Defense Appropriations Act would provide a US$27 billion increase from the previous fiscal year to fund “critical national defense efforts, including countering the PRC [People’s Republic of China],” according to a summary