The Bank of Japan revised up its economic assessment for two of the country\u2019s nine regions in a quarterly report released Thursday while leaving it unchanged for the rest.<\/p>\n
The central bank compiled the report at the day\u2019s meeting of managers of its regional branches, which was held at its headquarters in Tokyo. Demand related to artificial intelligence remained strong, including for semiconductor manufacturing equipment and electronic components. When it comes to production, the BOJ raised its economic assessment for seven of the nine regions, excluding Hokkaido and the Tokai region.<\/p>\n
In the report, the BOJ said the economy in all nine regions has been \u201cpicking up moderately,\u201d \u201crecovering moderately,\u201d or \u201con a moderate recovery trend\u201d while noting that \u201csome weakness has been seen in part.\u201d<\/p>\n
The central bank revised upward its economic assessment for the Tohoku region from the assessment that the economy \u201chas been picking up\u201d to the view that the economy \u201chas been recovering moderately.\u201d It also raised its economic view for Shikoku from an assessment that the economy \u201chas been picking up moderately\u201d to the view that the economy \u201chas been picking up.\u201d<\/p>\n
In interviews with companies, an electrical equipment maker in Osaka said that AI-related demand has been increasing faster than expected and that robust demand is likely to continue for about the next three years.<\/p>\n
Many branch chiefs reported that private consumption has generally remained resilient, supported by improvements in real income. A department store operator in Shizuoka Prefecture said that sales of high-priced goods, such as luxury watches and jewelry, remained strong. Against the backdrop of rising stock prices, there were also reports that sales to wealthy consumers showed no signs of weakening.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, a retailer in Nagoya said that bad weather, including typhoons and heavy rain, weighed on consumption.<\/p>\n
Kenji Fujita, manager of the central bank\u2019s branch in Osaka, said at a news conference that small and midsize companies have made relatively smooth progress in passing on higher costs in business-to-business transactions, but that the process is still only halfway along and uneven among businesses closer to consumers.<\/p>\n
Regarding the impact of the BOJ\u2019s interest rate hikes to date, an official at the central bank\u2019s Research and Statistics Department said only some companies had indicated that they would put off capital investment, while many said they would make necessary investments, including in labor-saving measures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Bank of Japan revised up its economic assessment for two of the country\u2019s nine regions in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":643272,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[20252,114,9513,184,85,46,14989],"class_list":["post-643271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-boj","tag-business","tag-economic-indicators","tag-economy","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-japanese-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=643271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643271\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}