April 2022
Survey of Corporate Attitudes towards Capital Investment for 2022
60% of companies have a capital investment plan, only a slight increase from the previous year
— While digital investments advance, hesitation is also seen due to the weak yen and high cost of raw materials —
Introduction
According to the Teikoku Databank estimate , real equipment investments by private companies for 2022 stood at 87 trillion yen, a likely increase for the second consecutive year, although the amount was still less than that before the spread of Covid infections (90.8 trillion yen for 2019). However, the domestic economy has considerable downside risks, such as increasing uncertainty due to the situation in Ukraine, and Covid-19, etc., escalating raw material prices and supply constraints, and the impact of the currently rapidly depreciating yen. There are also concerns about the impact on capital investment trends.
Therefore, Teikoku Databank has conducted a survey of corporate attitudes towards capital investment for 2022. This survey was conducted in conjunction with the April 2022 TDB Trends Research.
*Survey period: April 15 – 30, 2022; Companies Surveyed: 24,854; Valid Responses: 11,267 (Response Rate: 45.3%) The survey of capital investment has been conducted every April since April 2017, and this is the 6th such survey.
*Details of this survey can be found on the dedicated Economic Trend Survey HP (http://www.tdb-di.com).
Primary points of survey results(summary)
- 1 58.9% of companies responded that they “have” plans to make capital investments in 2022. By size, 72.0% of large companies “have” plans to make capital investments, whereas 56.3% of SMEs and 43.7% of small companies have plans to do so. The estimated capital investment amount averaged 130.83 million yen for 2022 (125.72 million yen for 2021)..
- 2 With respect to capital investment details (multiple answers), “replacement of equipment” was top (41.5%), followed by “maintenance and repair of existing equipment” (32.5%), “labor saving/rationalization” (26.2%), and “informatization-related (IT investments)” (24.5%). Particularly, 34.3% of companies selected either “informatization-related (IT investments)” or “DX (digital transformation)”. Digital investments are planned mainly by those companies with large numbers of employees.
- 3 As reasons for not making capital investments, “the future cannot be foreseen” (53.0%) ranked top, followed by “equipment in its current state is at the appropriate level” (26.4%), “profitability commensurate with investments cannot be secured” (20.8%), “the burden of borrowing is large” (13.3%), and “escalating raw material prices” (13.1%).