On the domestic demand side, business fixed investment has continued on an increasing trend with corporate profits and business sentiment maintaining their improving trend. According to the June 2018 Tankan (Short-Term Economic Survey of Enterprises in Japan), business fixed investment plans for fiscal 2018, especially those of large enterprises, showed firms' solid stance.
This is evidenced by, for example, the fact that fixed investment plans on a basis close to GDP definition saw a year-on-year increase of 8.7 percent -- a level clearly exceeding the past average of 4.4 percent for the June Tankan surveys during the period of fiscal 2004-2017.