Japan’s Jan.-March business investment up 3.0% on year

Capital spending by Japanese companies rose 3.0 percent in the January-March quarter from a year earlier, marking the fourth consecutive quarter of increase, government data showed Wednesday. Investment by all nonfinancial sectors for purposes such as building factories and adding equipment totaled 14.9 trillion yen ($115 billion), according to the data released by the Finance Ministry. The pretax profits of companies covered in the ministry’s survey increased 13.7 percent to 22.8 trillion yen. Sales grew 7.9 percent to 360.8 trillion yen. Taking into account the latest capital spending figure…

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