Quake sours Japan business mood
Japanese business confidence in the outlook for the next three months has plunged following the March 11 earthquake-tsunami and subsequent nuclear crisis, the Bank of Japan said Monday.
The central bank re-released Friday's quarterly Tankan survey to show the breakdown in the replies it received before and after the disasters.
With most of the respon-ses from companies received before March 11, the survey does not fully reflect the impact of the quake.
But responses from firms received after the tragedy show a sharply divergent view after the 9.0 magnitude earthquake damaged factories, caused power power shortages and led to major disruption to supply chains.
The BoJ's report on Friday showed business sentiment among large manufacturers improving to "six" in March from "five" in December, but only 23.6 percent of responses were received after March 11.
Monday's survey illustrated the views of firms polled after the quake, which showed the sentiment index among those major manufacturers fall to "minus two" for the April-June period.
The index measures the percentage of firms that say conditions are good minus those that say conditions are bad.
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