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JETRO’s business sentiment in East Asia survey

February 28, 2007
By Ken Worsley


JETRO posted their latest survey on business sentiment in East Asia yesterday, with some interesting finds:

JETRO’s monthly survey of Japanese companies and affiliates operating in 12 countries/regions of East Asia revealed that overall current sentiment fell into negative territory in the ASEAN region, due to stagnation in the region’s electric/electronics equipment sector.

I read this and it strikes me how much more important electronics are than cars. According to the report, “Overall current business sentiment for the five ASEAN countries included in the survey declined dramatically in February, plunging 7.3 points to move the index into negative territory.”

Those five countries would be Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Thailand’s sentiment score dropped to its lowest figure since the survey began in June 2001.

Despite the drop in the figures for the ASEAN nations, not all is lost. JETRO’s conclusion:

Business sentiment in February among Japanese companies operating in Asia went into the negative range for ASEAN as a whole, influenced by overall unfavorable conditions in electric and electronic machinery, combined with the decline of business sentiment in Thailand to its lowest point ever. In China and North Asia, there was continuing sluggishness in Taiwan and the Republic of Korea, but China and Hong Kong held steady. As a result, figures rose somewhat for the region as a whole.

Why is all this important? Well, with the lack in domestic demand continuing, exports have surged to make up 16% of Japan’s GDP. Any setbacks in Asia could turn out to be quite painful for Japan. At any rate, since the report is in English and on JETRO’s website, it might be worth a look.

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Comments

One Response to “JETRO’s business sentiment in East Asia survey”

  1. Doing Business in Japan? on May 9th, 2007 2:37 pm

    Hi Ken

    I like your blog. Interesting reading!

    Readers log may also be interested to check out the following site which refers to staff training procedures for those travelling to Japan on business trips for the first time:

    Thanks for the comment and glad you like the site…unfortunately we don’t allow advertising in the comments section (most sites don’t, and you’ll find some people getting quite angry about it). We do have some advertising solutions and you can see more information about them by clicking ‘Advertising’ on the top menu. Thanks again!

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