Corporate bankruptcies in Japan fell in the six months to September for the third consecutive half-year, but rising oil prices and the restructuring of the financial sector continue to cloud the economic outlook, according to a private research agency.
Company bankruptcies declined nearly 18 per cent to 6,847 year-on-year in the fiscal half-year to end September, falling below 7,000 for the first time in a decade, said Teikoku Databank.
Bankruptcies have now been falling year-on-year for the past 21 months - the third longest run of declines since the end of the Second World War.
The total debt of companies that failed also slipped 43 per cent from a year ago to Y3,141bn (US$29bn, Ђ23bn, Ј16bn), highlighting the decline in large-scale bankruptcies. There was only one bankruptcy involving liabilities of more than Y100bn, Teikoku reported.
"This clearly indicates that corporate failures are on a declining trend," the agency noted in its report.
