In the corporate bond market, although the views of issuers and investors continue to diverge on the terms of issuance of electric power company bonds, issuing conditions have been favorable as a whole, leading to an increased variety of corporate bond issuers.
In these circumstances, firms have retained their recovered financial positions on the whole, albeit with the observed weakness at some firms, mainly small ones. On the price front, the year-on-year rate of change in the CPI (excluding fresh food) marked 0.6 percent in April and May.