Against this general background, although bank lending remains down year on year, this may be considered largely due to factors affecting companies’ demand for loans. One of these factors is the problem of companies’ excessive debt. In the non-manufacturing sector, although progress has been made, the ratio of total liabilities to total sales remains high and companies continue to pay down their interest-bearing liabilities.
The situation is somewhat different in the manufacturing sector, where this ratio has fallen to a rather low level compared to the first half of the 1980s.