By Makiko Yamazaki<\/p>\n
TOKYO (Reuters) -Japanese manufacturers grew less confident about business conditions in June and expressed caution about the outlook for the next three months, citing U.S. tariff uncertainties and weak Chinese demand, a Reuters Tankan poll showed.<\/p>\n
The monthly poll, which tracks the Bank of Japan’s quarterly business sentiment index, recorded a manufacturers’ index of plus 6 in June, down from plus 8 in May.<\/p>\n
The index is projected to decline further to plus 2 in the coming three months, though it remains in positive territory, signalling that optimists still outnumber pessimists.<\/p>\n
The poll, conducted between June 4-13, surveyed 504 major non-financial companies, with 220 responding on condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n
Japan has been in intensive negotiations with the United States to fully remove tariffs on its goods, including a 25% duty on automobiles and auto parts, Japan’s biggest industry.<\/p>\n
“Our clients continue to be cautious about fresh capital expenditure as the Chinese economy has been sluggish and the impact of U.S. tariff policies remains unclear,” a manager at a machinery maker wrote in the survey.<\/p>\n
Those in the automobiles and auto parts sector also voiced tariff concerns. “Automakers are reducing production due to the U.S. tariff policies,” a manager in the sector said.<\/p>\n
A chemicals firm manager said that a client automaker had shifted domestic production to the U.S. to mitigate tariff costs. As a result, sales to the automaker have dropped, the manager said.<\/p>\n
A pulp and paper maker flagged issues stemming from China’s rare earth export curbs, which client companies are scrambling to address and which could affect demand for its products.<\/p>\n
For the service sector, the business sentiment index stood at plus 30 in June, unchanged from May. Companies expect sentiment to weaken to plus 24 in the coming three months.<\/p>\n
The information and telecommunications sector reported clients’ active information technology investments. Inbound tourism helped boost business confidence among services firms.<\/p>\n
However, rising labor costs and shortages weighed on some businesses, the survey found.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Makiko Yamazaki; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Makiko Yamazaki TOKYO (Reuters) -Japanese manufacturers grew less confident about business conditions in June and expressed caution…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193021,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3090],"tags":[48378,51,18004,1700,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-193020","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-bank-of-japan","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-business-sentiment","11":"tag-economy","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114701512419322722","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}