Mar. 2017
Corporate Attitudes toward Performance Outlook for 2017
Moderate recovery trends with 27.6% of companies anticipating "increase in income and profit"
— Companies evaluate Abenomics at 63.1 points, 2.8 points up from a year ago —
Introduction
The domestic economy has been recovering mainly in the service and manufacturing industries, despite companies’ increased cost burden including a rise in the crude oil price. However, there are concerns that loss of opportunities to secure orders as a result of labor shortages may inhibit economic growth. Also, the effect that business trends have on performance varies depending on the region, industry and size.
Based on these development, Teikoku Databank has conducted a survey on corporate attitudes toward the performance outlook for 2017. This survey was conducted in conjunction with the March 2017 TDB Trends Research.
*Survey period: March 17 - 31, 2017; Companies Surveyed: 23,929; Valid Responses: 10,305 (Response Rate: 43.1%).
*The survey for the performance outlook has been conducted every year since March 2009, and this is the 9th survey.
*Details of this survey can be found on the dedicated Economic Trend Survey HP. (http://www.tdb-di.com).
Primary points of survey results(summary)
- 1 27.6 % of companies anticipate "increase in income and profit" in the performance outlook for 2017. While this is up 1.7 points from the 2016 outlook, those anticipating "decrease in income and profit" fell by 3.0 points. Many companies anticipate improved performance in 2017, and a recovery of performance is gradually spreading to SMEs.
- 2 With respect to downside factors in the performance outlook for 2017, "further downturn in consumer spending" at 35.5% ranked top, followed by "labor shortage" and "income decrease." In particular, "labor shortage" increased by 6.1 points from the previous survey (March 2016), which suggests that companies are strongly concerned about securing and retaining their labor force. Conversely, "recovery in consumer spending" was ranked top at 36.8% for upside factors, for the sixth year in a row, followed by "increase in public works" and "Increase in income."
- 3 Companies evaluate the achievements of the economic policies of the Abe Administration (Abenomics) at 63.1 out of 100 points. Although SMEs continue to more harshly view Abenomics over four years, companies’ evaluations have improved from a year ago, and on the whole gave an evaluation of more than 60 points.