Economic and fiscal policy minister Heizo Takenaka said Friday that the Bank of Japan's "tankan" survey for March, released Thursday, shows that Japan's ongoing economic recovery is sustainable.
Takenaka told a news conference that he was encouraged by the quarterly business-sentiment survey, in which some 10,000 companies said they anticipate a 10.5 percent rise in pretax profit in the fiscal year that began Thursday.
Despite some risk factors for the economy, such as the yen's appreciation against the dollar, the government will manage the economy in a manner that will extend the recovery led by major companies to individual households and regional areas, he said.
The tankan shows that the key business confidence index for major nonmanufacturers entered the plus column in March for the first time in more than seven years.