Japan Press Weekly

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2014 June 4 - 10 [ECONOMY]

Corporations accelerate accumulation of internal reserves

Japan’s largest 1,000 companies in FY 2013 amassed a total of more than 23 trillion yen in internal reserves, while the increase in the previous year was 16 trillion yen, Akahata reported on June 8.

Akahata collected data from the financial reports of the 1,000 most profitable companies (consolidated base).

The number of companies which increased internal reserves by more than 200 billion yen was 22 in 2013, up from 16 in the previous year. Toyota Motors came out on top, earning 1.4 trillion yen. Other motor companies, Mitsubishi, Honda and Nissan, also joined the 22 top-earning corporations.

The three major banks, Mitsubishi UFJ, Sumitomo Mitsui, and Mizuho, added about 1.9 trillion yen in total to their accumulated reserves. The 22 companies included telecommunication giants such as Softbank and KDDI along with general trading firms.

These corporations can provide a pay raise of 10,000 yen per month to all of their workers by using only 1%-4% of their newly-added money, Akahata pointed out.

The Abe government is moving to cut the corporation tax rate while planning to impose an even higher consumption tax rate on the general public. The smaller tax burden on businesses will lead to a larger amount of corporate internal reserves.