気ままなリライト５１

全産業の経常益18.3%増

The total growth by industry in companies’ profits from ordinary business operations seemed to indicate “a gradual economic recovery” as the Ministry of Finance explained, based on the quarterly financial statistics of corporations by industry between July and September 2022 excluding the finance and insurance sectors. The quarterly statistics by industry in sales, ordinary profits and plant investment compiled by the Ministry of Finance obscured the difference between small and middle-sized companies and big companies by covering a financial loss from many small and middle-sized companies with a huge gain from a few big companies in a specific industry. The total growth in ordinary profits in all industries belittled a drop in ordinary profits in construction, fuel or electricity-related industries.
 
The manufacturing sector has played a big role in generating a total 18.3 % year-on-year growth in ordinary profits in all industries in the quarter between July and September 2022, marking a record high 19.8098 trillion yen in the same quarter. The lift of lockdown in Shanghai area by the Chinese Communist Party got the disrupted supply chains back to normal in June, putting production in full swing. That pushed up the ordinary profits in the manufacturing sector to a 35.4 % increase year-on-year. The ordinary profits in machinery production for transportation were almost tripled. Electrical machinery marked a 73.4 % increase in the ordinary profits. A weakening yen also boosted the ordinary profits in export-related industries, although downward pressure from the price hike of fuel and raw materials led to a drop in the ordinary profits in the industries making products related to petroleum, coal, iron and steel.
 
Some industries in the non-manufacturing sector benefited from a drastic increase in passenger or pedestrian traffic when it came to the ordinary profits, although others didn’t. A 59.3 % year-on-year increase was recorded in the service industry. 7.4 times as large as in the ordinary profits was marked year-on-year in the transport and postal industry while the construction industry suffered a 38.5 % decrease in the ordinary profits year-on-year. The ordinary profits fell by more than three times in electricity-related industry due to a drop in the cash received from the interest. In the total growth in the ordinary profits year-on-year, the non-manufacturing sector enjoyed a 5.6 % increase, thanks to various kinds of government incentives.
 
The total growth in the investment in plant and equipment done by all industries settled down to a 9.8 % increase year-on-year, the second-highest increase for the first time in four years after the April and June quarter in 2018 marked 12.8 %. Although the total growth was reduced by the industries related to petroleum and coal or machinery for general purposes with each drop of 40 %, a 77 % increase came from the real estate industry in which many brokerage agencies pumped up the investment for building new condominiums keeping their ordinary profits down. In the manufacturing industry with an 8.2 % increase in investment, Information-related electronic equipment manufacturing companies boosted their investment by 27 % year-on-year. Investment in factories producing semiconductors went up by 30 % in the automobile-related industry.
 
Sales in all industries reached 350.361 trillion yen with an 8.3 % year-on-year increase. The total growth in sales in the manufacturing sector was 12 %, 6.7 % in the non-manufacturing sector. The growth in sales didn’t reflect the increase in ordinary profits in some industries such as the industry manufacturing products related to petroleum and coal, and the electricity-related industry. Although the price hike of crude oil contributed a 65.8 % increase in sales, the increase in sales of coal and petroleum products was evaporated within a drop in the ordinary profits including non-operating gain and loss. A steep dive in the ordinary profits in electricity-related industry showed that a 68.9 % increase in sales due to a rising electricity bill was cancelled out.