Japan Fails to Plow Yen Profits Back Into Capital Spending
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The Abenomics euphoria that’s boosted the Japanese stock market 31 percent this year has yet to convince chief executives to invest more in factories and equipment in the world’s third-largest economy.
In the first full quarter of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s tenure, capital spending excluding software fell 5.2 percent from a year earlier, according to a survey from the Ministry of Finance released yesterday. Spending by Japan’s biggest companies dropped 4.9 percent in January-March, the biggest decline since the quarter after the March 2011 earthquake.