The seven Japan Railway companies on Friday unveiled their business management plans for fiscal 2001, with four of them projecting sales of almost the same level as that of the current fiscal year.

The East, West, Central and Hokkaido units said sales will remain almost the same as in fiscal 2000, saying signs of economic recovery that started to appear in the second half of the current year will continue into the next fiscal year.

The Kyushu and Shikoku units as well as Japan Freight Railway Co. are projecting slight decreases.

East Japan Railway Co. is projecting pretax profits of 115 billion yen on group sales of 1.909 trillion yen for fiscal 2001, the exact same amount of the projected sales for fiscal 2000.

Central Japan Railway Co. expects to post pretax profits of 76.3 billion yen on group sales of 1.093 trillion yen for fiscal 2001. For fiscal 2000, the company projected record sales of 1.0925 trillion yen and pretax profits of 68 billion yen.

Central Japan Railway said it plans to reduce long-term liabilities, which stood at 4.8 trillion yen in March 2000, to around 4.6 trillion yen by the end of this month and cut another 130 billion yen by the end of March 2002.

The group companies separately submitted the business plans to the Land, Infrastructure and Transport Ministry.

For East Japan Railway Co., West Japan Railway Co. and Central Japan Railway Co., the business plans will be the last ones they submit to the government, as the transport ministry plans to submit a bill to the current Diet session that, if passed, would fully privatize the three railway companies.