The number of corporate bankruptcies in the first half of fiscal 2005 dropped below 6,500 for the first time in 14 years on a half-year basis, Tokyo Shoko Research said Monday.
The number of companies going bust for the six-month period to Sept. 30 fell to 6,388, a decline of 4.8 percent from the first half of fiscal 2004 for the third straight first-half fall, the private credit research agency said.
It attributed the drop in bankruptcies to the fact that more medium-size and small firms used the government's safety net lending facility to avoid failure.
Improved business conditions, mainly in major companies, were another contributing factor, it said.
Debts left by failed companies during the period dropped 8.2 percent to 2.9 trillion, yen falling below 3 trillion yen for the first time in nine years on a fiscal first-half basis.
By industry, failures of construction firms accounted for 29.5 percent of the total, followed by services firms at 18.1 percent and manufacturers at 14.9 percent.
In September there were 987 bankruptcies, down 9.4 percent from a year earlier.
Also Monday, credit research firm Teikoku Databank released monthly data showing that the number of bankruptcies fell 11.0 percent in September from the previous month to 671.