Japan December corporate bankruptcies down 16.6pct yr/yr

Japan's corporate bankruptcies fell 16.6 per cent in December from a year earlier to 1,136 cases, down for a fifth straight month, helped in part by government credit guarantees for small companies, a research firm said on Wednesday. Total debt involved more than halved last month to ¥295.6bn ($3.25bn), the third lowest amount last year as big firm bankruptcies decreased, data from Tokyo Shoko Research showed. Compared with the previous month, the number of bankruptcies rose 0.4 per cent in December, while the amount of bankruptcy debt fell 57.5 per cent. Tokyo Shoko warned of a bleak outlook for demand, however. It said the number of bankruptcies caused by slumping sales accounted for 81.5 per cent of total cases, the second highest ratio on record. In 2009, Japanese corporate bankruptcies dropped 1.1 per cent from a year earlier, with total debt involved down 43.6 per cent.