Japan's corporate bankruptcies up 8.2% in 1st half of 2009

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TOKYO, July 8 Kyodo -
The number of Japanese corporate bankruptcies in the first half of 2009
increased 8.28 percent from a year earlier to a six-year high of 8,169, a
private credit research agency said Wednesday.
The year-on-year increase in the first half came for the fourth straight year,
Tokyo Shoko Research said. The number covered firms that went bankrupt with
debts of 10 million yen or more.
Debts at the companies that went bankrupt in the January-June period shot up
47.35 percent to a five-year high of 4.69 trillion yen as the number of large
bankruptcies with debts of 10 billion or more expanded to 70 from 42.
The number of bankruptcies in the manufacturing sector scored a steep rise of
30.52 percent to 1,454.
Five others out of the 10 industrial sectors posted bankruptcy increases,
including the services sector with the number of business failures up 9.56
percent to 1,524.
Three other sectors recorded bankruptcy drops, including the construction
sector with the number down 0.94 percent to 2,100.
In June alone, Tokyo Shoko Research said 1,422 firms went bankrupt, up 7.40
percent from the same month last year, with debts totaling 477.12 billion yen,
down 3.09 percent.
Teikoku Databank, another private credit research agency, said the number of
business failures in the first half of this year rose 16.6 percent from a year
earlier to 7,023 with debts expanding 52.2 percent to 4.59 trillion yen.
Failures in June came to 1,294 companies, up 21.5 percent from a year earlier,
with liabilities amounting to 474.47 billion yen, up 0.5 percent.
==Kyodo
2009-07-08 22:54:30