Corporate failures in Japan hit 1,620 in January, up 19.3 percent from a year earlier and a postwar record high for the month, Teikoku Databank Ltd. said Friday.

Liabilities left behind by failed firms rose 10.1 percent to 1.06 trillion yen, also a postwar record for the month, the private credit research agency said.

The statistics cover bankruptcies with liabilities of 10 million yen or more.

The latest data make it almost certain that the number of corporate failures and liabilities left by failed firms in fiscal 2001 will come close to hitting the postwar record highs of 20,363 cases in fiscal 1984 and 25.98 trillion yen in fiscal 2000.

In January, the number of employees at failed companies totaled 16,056, remaining above the 15,000 mark for the fifth consecutive month.

The number of manufactures going bankrupt rose 34.1 percent from a year earlier to 299, up for the fifth straight month.

Four listed companies went under, matching the monthly record posted in November.

They include frozen-food wholesaler KB Co., with liabilities of 20.49 billion yen, and house-builder Shokusan Jutaku Sogo Co., with liabilities of 13.5 billion yen.

Both are listed on the first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

Recession-induced failures, or failures caused by such factors such as poor sales and exports and difficulties in recovering book credits, accounted for 77 percent of the total, staying above 75 percent for the ninth consecutive month.

There were 10 failures related to mad cow disease, marking the first double-digit figure since September, when the first case of mad cow disease was confirmed in Japan, the agency said.

There were three failures attributed to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, the agency said.

They included Tokyo-based golf course operator Guam International Country Club, whose business in Guam was hit hard by a decline in overseas Japanese tourism. The total of such cases since October came to 12.