The combined balance of consolidated sales and profit by listed companies was up for the first time in four years in fiscal 2000, according to a tally released Friday.
The Shinko Research Institute, which has been tracing group results released by 947 nonfinancial companies listed on the First Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange over the past three years, analyzed results announced by 836 firms by Friday and found that their combined sales increased 4.2% in fiscal 2000 over the previous year.
Combined pretax profit grew 38.5%, with 74.4% of the 836 companies reporting gains. Combined net profit jumped 2.7 times, compared with the previous year's 37.4% gain.