The majority of Japan's top executives have said an expanding phase of the nation's economy is already over, a poll showed yesterday.
The Asahi Shimbun daily carried out its latest biannual survey between May 29 and June 12, covering presidents and other top executives of Japan’s major 100 companies.
Fifty-three companies said “the present economic expansion has already finished,” a rise from only seven firms saying so in the previous survey in November.
Ten companies said they believed the economy would continue expanding until this summer, while 32 replied the expansion phase would last until late this year or even next year.
The respondents cited gloomy prospects for the US economy and the recent surge in oil prices and raw materials as factors likely to have a negative effect on the Japanese economy.
Among the companies polled were Sony, Hitachi, Canon and Nintendo.
Japanese Finance Minister Fukushiro Nukaga said yesterday that the economy was showing some signs of a slump amid global uncertainties.
“Concerns about a slowdown in the US economy are growing, while the prospect for the Chinese economy is still unknown,” Nukaga told TV Asahi.
“We had said the [Japanese] economy was at a standstill, but we are now saying there is weakness” on concerns about possible slumps in corporate earnings and individual spending, Nukaga said.
Japan’s economy grew 4 percent annually in the first quarter of the year, marking the third straight positive quarter for the world’s second-largest economy.
But many analysts warn that a slowdown is inevitable in the second quarter as the global economic climate chills in response to economic problems in the US sparked by the housing slump and subprime crisis.
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