A survey on investment plans by major Japanese companies has indicated an upturn in spending on information technology, a weekend press report said.
The survey, published by Kyodo News yesterday, showed that 43 companies planned to invest a total of Japanese yen 448.5 billion (US$3.5 billion) in IT-related areas in the year to March 2003, up 3.8 percent from the preceding year.
The survey in mid-April yielded responses from 150 major Japanese firms of which the 43 provided specific amounts of their IT-related investments, Kyodo News said. The other firms refused to give figures.
Of the respondents, 36 planned to increase IT investment while 23 others planned cutbacks. Twenty-seven said their IT-related investment would level off from the previous year.
Many firms hoped to use IT for improving their procurement and control of resources, upgrading services for their clients and speeding up the process of management, the report said.
"But there are also many enterprises which think it is more important to cut costs than investing in IT," Kyodo said. "It is still unclear if IT investment will greatly expand to become a leverage in refloating the economy."
Hitachi Ltd. reported the largest amount of planned IT investment among the surveyed firms. The value of the spending will rise 15.9 percent from the preceding fiscal year to Japanese yen 65.5 billion, Kyodo News said.
Hitachi had been selective in IT investment last year because of a slump in the IT market. But it plans to increase such spending focusing on software useful for streamlining operations, the report said.
Tokyo Electric Power Co Inc ranks second on the list with Japanese yen 61.4 billion, up 3.9 percent from the previous year, followed by Toshiba Corp at Japanese yen 50 billion, up 2 percent.
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