Business sentiment among large Japanese manufacturers deteriorated in September from three months earlier, the Bank of Japan's Tankan survey showed Thursday. The finding reflected growing fears of an adverse impact from China's economic slowdown.

With the outlook of manufacturers and nonmanufacturers also bleak, the results could add to pressure on the central bank to ease monetary policy further as early as this month to help the economy. It shrank in the April to June quarter amid weak exports and production.

The diffusion index for large companies such as carmakers and electronics firms fell 3 points from the previous June poll to plus 12 and was slightly weaker than the average forecast of plus 13 in a Kyodo News survey of economists.