January 2016
Bank of Japan
Research and Statistics Department

Site Map of the Tankan

Name		Content	Site	Release Timing
Result of Each Survey
	Tankan Summary	Main figures of the survey results	Statistics (PDF, MS-Excel files) (Japanese/English)	8:50 a.m. on the release day
	Tankan Outline	Main figures of 'Tankan Summary'	Statistics (Japanese/English)	8:50 a.m. on the release day
	Tankan Figures by Industry	Main figures by industries	Statistics (MS-Excel files) (Japanese & English)	8:50 a.m. on the following day of release
	Tankan Summary of "Inflation Outlook of Enterprises"	Main figures of "Inflation Outlook of Enterprises"	Statistics (PDF, MS-Excel files) (Japanese/English)	8:50 a.m. on the following day of release
	Tankan: The Comprehensive Data Set	Detailed release data	Statistics (MS-Excel files) (Japanese & English)	8:50 a.m. on the following day of release
	Long-Term Time Series Data	Detailed long-term time series data	BOJ Time-Series Data Search (Japanese/English)	8:50 a.m. on the following day of release
Framework
	Sample Form	Sample form of Tankan	Statistics (Japanese/English)	--
	General Explanation	Purpose, coverage, and survey items, etc.	See below.	--
	Sample Design and Sample Maintenance of TANKAN	The explanation of the sample design and sample maintenance of the Tankan. (June 2004)	Statistics (Japanese/English)	--

Index

• 1. Purpose of Survey
• 2. Survey Method
• 3. Frequency of Survey
• 4. Coverage
  • (1) Tankan
  • (2) Financial Institutions
• 5. Survey Items
  • (1) Judgment Survey
  • (2) Annual Projections
  • (3) Inflation Outlook of Enterprises
  • (4) Number of New Graduates Hired
• 6. Calculation Methods
  • (1) Judgment Survey
  • (2) Quantitative Data
  • (3) Inflation Outlook of Enterprises
• 7. Release Method
• 8. Others

Explanation of the Short-Term Economic Survey of Enterprises in Japan (Tankan)

1. Purpose of Survey

The Tankan is a statistical survey by the Bank of Japan in accordance with the Statistics Law (Law No. 53 of 2007). The survey is conducted to provide an accurate picture of business trends of enterprises in Japan, thereby contributing to the appropriate implementation of monetary policy.

2. Survey Method

The answer sheet is returned by mail or online. The Bank of Japan is obliged to keep confidential information obtained from respondents under strict security control in accordance with the Statistics Law.

3. Frequency of Survey

The survey is conducted quarterly in March, June, September, and December. The survey results are released at the beginning of April, July, October, and mid-December in principle (released at 8:50 a.m. Japan Standard Time). The release dates for the next one year are announced in advance at the end of June and December.

4. Coverage

(1) Tankan

The population of the survey is approximately 210 thousand private enterprises (excluding financial institutions) in Japan with at least 20 million yen in capital, based on the "Economic Census for Business Activity" jointly conducted by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications and by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in February 2012.

Sample enterprises are selected from the population by industry and size classification, under certain statistical criteria that have been set to statistical accuracy and other measuring instruments as shown below.

(a)	The error ratios of the population estimates in sales of the sample enterprises are within the target range (3 percent for the manufacturing sector and 5 percent for the nonmanufacturing sector).
(b)	The distribution of sample enterprises measured by the size of capital and the number of regular employees is consistent with the distribution of population enterprises.

Sample enterprises are reviewed when the population of the survey is updated. Most recently, sample enterprises were reviewed in March 2015 (the number of sample enterprises was 11,126 as of the March 2015 survey).

Reference: The number of sample enterprises as of the March 2015 survey.

	Number of Population	Number of Sample Enterprises
Manufacturing	46,759	4,517
Nonmanufacturing	165,518	6,609
All Industries	212,277	11,126

In principle, sample enterprises are fixed until the next revision. However, the statistical accuracy may decline due to decrease in the number of sample enterprises caused by mergers, spin-offs, and other corporate activities. Therefore statistical examination is conducted annually, and when the statistical accuracy actually declines, new sample enterprises are added.

Industry classification:

Manufacturing is divided into 17 categories and nonmanufacturing into 14 categories, following the "Japan Standard Industrial Classification" released by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.

Following the revision of the "Japan Standard Industrial Classification" released in November 2007, some industry classifications were revised from the March 2010 survey (For details of the revision of the industry classification, refer to "Revision of the Industry Classification of the Short-term Economic Survey of Enterprises in Japan (TANKAN survey)" <June 30, 2008, Research and Statistics Department, Bank of Japan>).

Manufacturing	Basic materials	Textiles
		Lumber & Wood products
		Pulp & Paper
		Chemicals
		Petroleum & Coal products
		Ceramics, Stone & Clay
		Iron & Steel
		Nonferrous metals
	Processing	Food & Beverages
		Processed metals
		General-purpose, Production & Business oriented machinery	General-purpose machinery
			Production machinery
			Business oriented machinery
		Electrical machinery
		Transportation machinery	Shipbuilding, Heavy machinery & Other transportation machinery
			Motor vehicles
		Other manufacturing
Nonmanufacturing	Construction
	Real estate, Goods rental & Leasing		Real estate
			Goods rental & Leasing
	Wholesaling & Retailing		Wholesaling
			Retailing
	Transport & Postal activities
	Information communication		Communications
			Information services
			Other information communication
	Electric & Gas utilities
	Services for businesses
	Services for individuals
	Accommodations, Eating & Drinking services
	Mining & Quarrying of stone and gravel

Size classification:

Based on the size of capital, enterprises are categorized into large enterprises (capital with 1 billion yen and more), medium-sized enterprises (capital with 100 million yen to less than 1 billion yen), and small enterprises (capital with 20 million yen to less than 100 million yen).

From the March 2004 survey, the data is switched from "regular employees" basis (categorized into large, medium-sized, and small enterprises according to the number of regular employees) to "capital" basis.

Aggregates are released by industry and size classification (total of 93 strata: 31 industries <17 in manufacturing and 14 in nonmanufacturing> divided into three scales <large, medium-sized, and small enterprises>). The strata are further segmented (total of 391 strata) by the size of capital and the number of employees for selecting sample enterprises and calculating the population estimates.

(2) Financial Institutions

Financial institutions are also surveyed in order to supplement the Tankan.

From the March 2004 survey, the survey on financial institutions has been changed to a sample survey, and the coverage and survey items have been expanded.

Population enterprises (743 enterprises) are comprised of those belonging to the following seven sectors: (1) city banks and trust banks¹; (2) member banks of the Regional Banks Association of Japan and the Second Association of Regional Banks; (3) shinkin banks; (4) other financial institutions for small businesses; (5) financial products transaction dealers; (6) insurance companies; and (7) non-deposit money corporations².

Sample enterprises are selected from the population³ by sector and size classification according to the amount of total assets (18 strata), under certain statistical criteria that have been set to target accuracy and other measuring instruments as explained below:

(a)	The error ratios of population estimates in fixed investment based on the sample enterprises are within the target range (10 percent for all financial institution sectors).
(b)	The distribution of sample enterprises measured by the size of total assets is consistent with the distribution of population enterprises.

Sample enterprises are reviewed in line with the revision of sample enterprises of the Tankan (197 sample enterprises as of the March 2015 survey).

In principle, sample enterprises are fixed until the next revision. However, as with the Tankan, statistical examination is conducted annually and when the statistical accuracy actually declines, new sample enterprises are added.

1	Including (1) domestic and foreign trust banks which started operations since October 1993, and (2) new-type banks which specialize in financial intermediation using websites and ATMs and do not belong to traditional banking sectors.
2	Coming under the classification of "Non-Deposit Money Corporations, including Lending and Credit Card Business" from the "Japan Standard Industrial Classification." Of those listed are the population enterprises of the Tankan.
3	Following the revision of the "Japan Standard Industrial Classification" released in November 2007, some financial institutions also were revised from the March 2010 survey (For details of the revision of the industry classification, refer to "Revision of the Industry Classification of the Short-term Economic Survey of Enterprises in Japan (TANKAN survey)" <June 30, 2008, Research and Statistics Department, Bank of Japan>).

5. Survey Items

Survey items consist of four groups: (1) "Judgment Survey;" (2) "Annual Projections;" (3) "Inflation Outlook of Enterprises;" and (4) "Number of New Graduates Hired (surveyed only in June and December)." They are all surveyed on a non-consolidated basis.

(1) Judgment Survey

For the following ten items, responding enterprises are asked to choose one alternative among three as the best descriptor of prevailing conditions, excluding seasonal factors, at the time of the survey and three months hence. The alternatives for each item are shown in brackets.

• Business Conditions:
  Judgment of general business conditions of the responding enterprise, primarily in light of individual profits.
  [1) Favorable. 2) Not so favorable. 3) Unfavorable.]
• Domestic Supply and Demand Conditions for Products and Services:
  Judgment of domestic supply and demand conditions for major products and services in the industry of the responding enterprise. Judgment in light of movements of goods, customers, and order arrival is included. Judgment including overseas conditions is also acceptable when it is difficult to exclude them.
  [1) Excess demand. 2) Almost balanced. 3) Excess supply.]
• Overseas Supply and Demand Conditions for Products:
  Judgment of overseas supply and demand conditions for major products in the industry of the responding enterprise.
  [1) Excess demand. 2) Almost balanced. 3) Excess supply.]
• Inventory Level of Finished Goods and Merchandise:
  Judgment of excessiveness, adequacy, or shortage of the inventory level of finished goods and merchandise compared with sales of the responding enterprise. Judgment requested only for "at the time of the survey."
  [1) Excessive or somewhat excessive. 2) Adequate. 3) Insufficient or somewhat insufficient.]
• Wholesalers' Inventory Level:
  Judgment of excessiveness, adequacy, or shortage of domestic and foreign wholesalers' inventory levels for major finished goods and merchandise in the industry of the responding enterprise. Judgment requested only for "at the time of the survey."
  [1) Excessive or somewhat excessive. 2) Adequate. 3) Insufficient or somewhat insufficient.]
• Production Capacity:
  Judgment of excessiveness, adequacy, or shortage of production capacity or business equipments of the responding enterprise, excluding a shortage caused by temporary conditions such as a closure of a factory due to regular repairs.
  [1) Excessive capacity. 2) Adequate. 3) Insufficient capacity.]
• Employment Conditions:
  Judgment of excessiveness, adequacy, or shortage of the number of employees at the responding enterprise.
  [1) Excessive employment. 2) Adequate. 3) Insufficient employment.]
• Financial Position:
  Judgment of the general cash position of the responding enterprise, taking into account the level of cash and cash equivalent, lending attitude of financial institutions, and payment and repayment terms. Judgment requested only for "at the time of the survey."
  [1) Easy. 2) Not so tight. 3) Tight.]
• Lending Attitude of Financial Institutions:
  Judgment of financial institutions' attitude towards lending as perceived by the responding enterprise. Judgment requested only for "at the time of the survey."
  [1) Accommodative. 2) Not so severe. 3) Severe.]
• Conditions for CP Issuance:
  Judgment of the overall issuing conditions of commercial paper issuance. Judgment requested only for "at the time of the survey."
  [1) Easy. 2) Not so severe. 3) Severe.]
  Responding enterprises for this item are limited to large enterprises with 1 billion yen and more in capital that either issued CP at least once in the past two years or are considering CP issuance at a future date. The "past two years" above means "since the end of March two years earlier " for the March survey, "since the end of June two years earlier" for the June survey, "since the end of September two years earlier" for the September survey, and "since the end of December two years earlier" for the December survey.

For the following three items, responding enterprises are asked to choose one alternative among three ([1) Rise. 2) Unchanged. 3) Fall.]) as the best descriptor of prevailing changes from three months earlier and three months hence, excluding seasonal factors.

• Change in Interest Rate on Loans:
  Judgment of changes in the interest rate on borrowings of the responding enterprise.
  [1) Rise. 2) Unchanged. 3) Fall.]
• Change in Output Prices:
  Judgment of changes in the yen-based selling prices of major products and services provided by the responding enterprise.
  [1) Rise. 2) Unchanged. 3) Fall.]
• Change in Input Prices:
  Judgment of changes in the yen-based purchasing prices of main raw materials, processing fees for subcontractors, and/or prices of main purchasing merchandise paid by the responding enterprise.
  [1) Rise. 2) Unchanged. 3) Fall.]

(2) Annual Projections

Responding enterprises are asked to provide semiannual and annual results and forecasts in million yen (in yen per dollar for predicted exchange rates) for the following 9 items.

• Sales:
  Total of "Sales," "Business Income," etc. listed on the income statement.
• Exports:
  Including both direct exports and exports via trading houses, but excluding tripartite trade such as exports from a foreign country to another foreign country.

  Wholesaling: Including direct exports, but excluding both exports via trading houses and tripartite trade such as exports from a foreign country to another foreign country.

• Exchange Rates for Exports:
  The average rate during the period for actual results and the expected rate assumed in the individual export plans.
• Operating Profits:
  Operating profits listed on the income statement.
• Current Profits:
  Current profits listed on the income statement.
• Net Income:
  Net income after tax deduction listed on the income statement.
• Fixed Investment:
  The amount of newly listed tangible fixed assets (including new land purchasing expenses and lease assets). Excluding transfers from other accounts to tangible fixed assets and increases in tangible fixed assets due to mergers.
• Land Purchasing Expenses:
  The amount of new land purchasing expenses (including land developing and preparing) among the above "Fixed Investment." This does not include real estate for sale or sale in lots.
• Software Investment:
  The amount of newly listed intangible fixed assets (including lease assets) among the software investment. Excluding software listed as expenses when obtaining.

(3) Inflation Outlook of Enterprises

Responding enterprises are asked to select the alternative nearest to their institution's expectation of the fluctuations in the following prices for 1 year ahead, 3 years ahead, and 5 years ahead, as adjusted to exclude the effects of changes due to institutional factors such as the consumption tax.

• Outlook for Output Prices:
  Expectation of the rate of price change for their mainstay domestic products and services relative to the current level. Responding enterprises without a clear expectation are asked to choose "Don't know."
  When a responding enterprise finds it difficult to narrow down its mainstay domestic products and services to a single product or service, the enterprise is expected to respond based on the weighted average expected price change for an appropriately selected subset of products and services, or on overall selling prices.
  When a responding enterprise finds it difficult to narrow down its mainstay products and services to solely domestic ones, the response may include the expected price change for export-bound products and services, adjusted to exclude the effects of changes due to exchange rate fluctuations as much as possible.
• Outlook for General Prices:
  Expectation of the annual percent change in general prices as measured by the consumer price index. Responding enterprises without a clear expectation are asked to select the reason.

(4) Number of New Graduates Hired (surveyed only in June and December)

Responding enterprises are asked to provide annual results and forecasts by person.

• Number of New Graduates Hired:
  The number of new graduates (considered as "new graduates" by each company) hired during the past fiscal year, and the number planned to be hired during the current/next fiscal year.

Financial institutions are surveyed only for the following items:

(a)	"Business Conditions," "Business Equipments," and "Employment Conditions" among "Judgment Survey."
(b)	"Fixed Investment," "Land Purchasing Expenses," and "Software Investment" among "Annual Projections."
(c)	"Number of New Graduates Hired."

6. Calculation Methods

(1) Judgment Survey

Responses are aggregated into Diffusion Index (DI) as follows:

DI (percent points)
= Percentage share of enterprises responding Choice one - Percentage share of enterprises responding Choice three

For example, "Business Conditions DI" is calculated by subtracting the percentage share of enterprises responding "(3) Unfavorable" from that of "(1) Favorable."

(2) Quantitative Data (Annual Projections and Number of New Graduates Hired)

The amount of "population estimates" is calculated by industry and size classifications as below. Year-on-year percent changes and revision rates are also calculated from the amount of population estimates.

Amount of population estimates
= simple aggregates / number of responding enterprises * number of population enterprises

(3) Inflation Outlook of Enterprises

The percentage share of the number of respondents choosing each alternative is calculated.

"The Average of Enterprises' Inflation Outlook," released as reference data, is the weighted average by response percentage.

"The Average of Enterprises' Inflation Outlook" is calculated excluding "Don't know." Response numbers are rounded for calculation purposes: for example, "around +15%" and "around +20% or higher" are rounded to +15% and +20%, respectively.

1. Missing Value Imputation or 2. Treatment of Outliers, both of which are statistical methods, is applied to quantitative data.

1. Missing Value Imputation
When annual projections of the surveyed enterprise are unanswered, the most recent responses of the enterprise are substituted instead for those unanswered questions upon aggregation.

2. Treatment of Outliers
With respect to "Sales," "Current Profits," "Net Income," "Fixed Investment," and "Software Investment," if the values reported from sample enterprises are subject to outliers, the values are treated as a missing value. (For more specific information, please refer to "Treatment of Outliers" [PDF 80KB].)

7. Release Method

For the judgment survey, quantitative data, and survey on "Inflation Outlook of Enterprises," aggregates by industry and size classifications are released (DI, year-on-year percent change, revision rate, actual amount of the population estimate, percentage share of the number of respondents choosing each alternative, etc.).

The aggregated results of financial institutions are released based on the following five classifications.

(a)	Banks = city banks and trust banks + member banks of the Regional Banks Association of Japan and the Second Association of Regional Banks
(b)	Shinkin banks and other financial institutions for small businesses = shinkin banks + other financial institutions for small businesses
(c)	Financial products transaction dealers
(d)	Insurance companies
(e)	Non-deposit money corporations

When already released data need correction, the corrected data, in principle, will be compiled and released as quickly as possible. However, the data may not be corrected in cases when responding enterprises revise their figures after the release.

8. Others

Apart from the Tankan (released by the Research and Statistics Department at the main office), branches of the Bank of Japan also aggregate and release the "Local Branch Tankan" (survey results of enterprises within the region covered by branches). Released materials are available on the websites of branches (only in Japanese).

There are two main differences between the Tankan and the "Local Branch Tankan":

(a)	In order to reflect the industrial structure of each region, respondents of the "Local Branch Tankan" include local branches of major enterprises, etc., which are not included in the Tankan.
(b)	On aggregation, while population estimates are calculated for the quantitative data of the Tankan, simple aggregates are calculated for those of the "Local Branch Tankan."

The Tankan has data discontinuities at the points shown below due to 1) the March 2004 revision, 2) changes to the treatment of Fixed Investment and Software investment from the September 2010 survey, and 3) the March 2014 revision (See "Revision of TANKAN in the March 2004 Survey -- Comparison between the pre- and post-revision in the December 2003 Survey" issued on March 2004, "Notice for the Tankan" issued on July 2010, and "Planned Revisions of the Tankan Survey -- Review of survey items, including the introduction of a survey on Inflation Outlook of Firms--" issued on March 2013).

1) March 2004 revision

• Judgment Survey : before December 2003 and since March 2004
• Annual Projection : before fiscal year 2002 and since fiscal year 2003
• Quarterly Data : before September 2003 and since December 2003

2) Changes of the treatment of Fixed Investment and Software Investment

• Annual Projection : before the June 2010 survey and since the September 2010 survey

3) March 2014 revision

• Conditions for CP Issuance : before December 2013 and since March 2014