Two sets of key government statistics on economic conditions released earlier this month -- the October-December data on corporate activities issued March 6 and the quarterly 2001 annual gross domestic product released March 8 -- both highlighted the lackluster state of capital investment by Japanese firms.
The corporate activities data released by the Finance Ministry showed capital spending during the three months dropped by 14.5 percent from the same period of 2000 to 9.686 trillion yen.
It was the sharpest decline since the 18.7 percent fall of the October-December period of 1998.