Japanese corporate bankruptcies fell in October for the 10th straight month as lending by official bodies continued to help stave off the risk of failure by firms in trouble, a research firm said today.
Bankruptcies fell 18.7 per cent year-on-year in October to 1,387 cases, said independent research firm Teikoku Databank.
In addition to receiving help from increased public funding and loan guarantees, companies are reducing credit risk by scaling back business, cutting spending and using cash instead of promissory notes to avoid payment problems, Teikoku said.
Debts of firms that failed in October fell 55.8 per cent year-on-year to 851 billion yen, dipping below one trillion yen for the first time in three months, it said.
The number of corporate failures in Japan has been declining since it peaked at 1,678 in July 2002, although they remain at a high level compared with the early and mid-1990s, when Japan was struggling to recover from the bursting of an asset bubble.