The current fiscal year has seen Japan's blue chip companies put themselves on a firm recovery track, absorbing the negative impact of the yen's strength, Nomura Securities Co. said Tuesday.
In the latest update of its corporate earnings forecasts for fiscal 2003, Nomura said that the firms' combined pretax profit will likely grow 18.3 percent from the previous year, while their combined revenue should rise 1.2 percent.
The figures constitute tallies of 343 firms on the Nomura- 400 index.
The forecast excludes companies in the financial sector.
The latest update represents an upward revision from Nomura's previous forecast, conducted in September. In that forecast, it changed the presumed dollar exchange rate against the yen for fiscal 2003 to 113.7 from 119.5.
Masanobu Kaizu, head of Nomura Securities' financial research center, said increased sales and cost-cutting efforts by these firms will more than offset the negative impact of the rising yen on their earnings.
"The latest update shows the strong profit structure of Japanese companies," he said.
Especially strong are the electronics and semiconductor sectors, which saw brisk sales of digital consumer products and an uptick in personal computer demand.
The steel sector has meanwhile seen growing demand in China, it said.