The number of corporate bankruptcies during the first six months of 2002 rose 4.7 percent from a year earlier to 9,872, the third-highest number since World War II, Teikoku Databank Ltd. said Friday.

The credit research agency attributed the rise mainly to the recession and the continued decline in prices.

Of the bankrupt firms, 7,497, or 75.9 percent, collapsed due to recession-induced factors, including poor sales and exports, difficulties in collecting payments for sales and increased bad loans. The percentage of such failures was the highest for a postwar first half, the agency said.

The number of companies going bust because of the repercussions of mad cow disease came to 40 in the first half, bringing to 64 the number that collapsed because of the disease since October, the month after the first case of the disease was found in Japan, according to Teikoku Databank.

The bankrupt firms left combined debts of 7.44 trillion yen during the six-month period, up 3.2 percent from a year earlier and the second-highest amount for a postwar first half, following the 9.17 trillion yen in debts left in the first half of 1999.

Teikoku Databank attributed the increase in the amount of debts to the many large-scale bankruptcies of listed companies, including Sato Kogyo Co., a Tokyo-based construction company that failed in March with liabilities of 449.9 billion yen.

In June, however, the number of bankruptcies decreased 9.5 percent from a year earlier to 1,415. It was also down 16.6 percent from May, posting a month-on-month decline for the second straight month and falling below 1,500 for the first time in 16 months. It was still the 10th-highest figure for June in the postwar period, however, the agency said.

Teikoku Databank said the dip in June does not indicate a pickup in the economy and that it instead reflects companies' "passive business attitude" amid the credit crunch.

The amount of liabilities in June came to 703.11 billion yen, falling below 1 trillion yen for the first time in 10 months.

The amount was down 35.2 percent from May, but up 1.8 percent from a year earlier.

The data cover bankruptcies of companies that left debts of 10 million yen or more.