By Kiyoshi Takenaka
TOKYO (Reuters) – More than 90% of Japanese firms are disappointed with the performance of Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s government with nearly a third favouring rival Sanae Takaichi as the best candidate to lead the country, a Reuters poll showed on Thursday.
About 58% of respondents said they found the government’s track record somewhat disappointing and 33% said it was very disappointing, while the remaining 9% believed the government had performed in line with their expectations, the survey showed.
“He lacks flamboyance, but I expected solid achievements. But so far he has achieved nothing substantial,” a manager at a transportation company wrote in the survey, while an official at a wholesaler said, “I don’t think he has done enough to bolster the economy.”
The survey’s findings bode ill for Ishiba’s ruling coalition ahead of an upper house election expected in mid-July.
In the past, a poor showing by a ruling party in an upper chamber election has occasionally prompted the incumbent prime minister to step down, although it is the lower house that has the final say in choosing the premier.
About 30% of respondents named Takaichi, a fiscal expansionist and hardline conservative who lost to Ishiba in last year’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) leadership election, as the most suitable candidate to be the nation’s next leader.
Only 10% wanted Ishiba to stay on, 8% preferred Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi and another 8% went for Yuichiro Tamaki, a former finance ministry bureaucrat who heads the opposition Democratic Party for the People (DPP).
Ishiba beat Takaichi, who was bidding to become Japan’s first female prime minister, in a runoff of the leadership race. But the LDP and its junior coalition partner Komeito lost their majority in a lower house election later in the year, weakening his grip on power.
Asked about the preferable ruling-coalition framework after the upper house vote, 31% of respondents chose the alliance between the LDP and Komeito, which is currently in power, and 26% picked a three-way coalition among the LDP, Komeito and the DPP.
The DPP quadrupled the number of its lower house seats to 28 in last year’s election after proposing a temporary halving in the sales tax rate to 5% and other steps to boost people’s net income.
The survey was conducted by Nikkei Research for Reuters from April 2-11. Nikkei Research reached out to 505 companies and 222 responded on condition of anonymity.
PRICE HIKES
Asked if they planned to raise prices in the business year that started April 1 amid rising costs of labour and raw materials, 13% said they had already done so and 70% said they were considering such steps, a trend that is likely to nudge the government to take measures to cushion the blow from rising living costs.
On a marked rise in monthly salaries for new recruits on the continued uptrend in prices and labour shortages, nearly 70% of respondents said it was unavoidable, the survey showed.
“Prices are on the rise. The current wage level cannot get us new workers,” an official at a steelmaker said, while a manager at a transportation equipment manufacturer said, “That’s something unavoidable in order to hire talented people in the era of fewer babies and ageing population.”
More than 70% of Japanese companies plan to raise starting monthly salaries for new graduates in the current business year, with the amount of increase from last year averaging 9,114 yen ($64), according to research firm Teikoku Databank.
($1 = 142.7400 yen)
(Reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka; Editing by Kate Mayberry)
