It is true that Japanese firms, backed by record profits, have recently started to increase fixed investment, which, according to our December Tankan Survey, will increase by about 8 1/2 percent this fiscal year.
However, if we look at the saving-investment balance of the corporate sector, in April-September last year, saving continues to exceed investment by more than 15 trillion yen or about 6 1/2 percent of GDP, as shown in the left-hand panel of Slide 7. In contrast, until the early 1990s corporate investment used to exceed corporate saving.