Corporate bankruptcies fell 7.7 percent in April from a year earlier to 1,514, down for the fourth consecutive month, Teikoku Databank Ltd. said Thursday.
Debts left by the failed firms fell 29.3 percent to 903.06 billion yen, falling below the 1 trillion yen mark for the first time in four months, the private credit-research agency said.
But despite the declines, the number of bankruptcies was the ninth-largest for April since World War II, and the amount of debts was the sixth-largest for the month in the postwar period, the agency said.
"The latest data show the number of bankruptcies has been stabilized . . . but holding potential to increase," Teikoku Databank said in a report covering failures involving liabilities of 10 million yen or more.
The agency said some large-scale bankruptcies, including K.K. Reoma, an Osaka-based theme park operator with debts of 139.4 billion yen, helped increase the total amount of liabilities.
By industry, the number of failures in the services sector came to 213, up 30.7 percent from a year earlier and marking the third-largest ever for any month, while that in the retail sector totaled 230, up 3.6 percent.
In April, only one listed company -- Hokkaido Shinko Co. -- went bust.
Recession-induced failures or those caused by poor sales and exports, difficulties recovering sales credits and an industry slump came to 1,169, accounting for 77.2 percent of the total failures.
The ratio of such failures stayed above 75 percent for the 12th straight month.
Failures of companies that had been in business for 30 years or more numbered 389, accounting for about one in four, or 25.7 percent, of the total bankruptcies.