Japan's electricity generation dropped for a fourth straight month in November, falling 1.8 percent from a year earlier as companies such as Toyota Motor Corp. cut production and the recession deepened.
The country's 10 regional utilities cut production to 77.17 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity last month, the Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan said in a report released in Tokyo today. Chubu Electric Power Co., which relies most heavily on industrial users among the 10 power utilities, saw the biggest decline, of 5.1 percent.
The Cabinet Office said yesterday gross domestic product contracted at an annual rate of 1.8 percent in the three months ended Sept. 30, exceeding the 0.9 percent forecasted by economists. The central bank's Tankan survey next week will probably show sentiment among big manufacturers sank the most in 34 years, economists predict.
“The drops would be much larger if they didn't include sales to households and small businesses such as hotels and shopping centers,” Hirofumi Kawachi, an energy analyst at Mizuho Investors Securities Co. in Tokyo, said by phone. “There is too much bad news around.”
Chubu Electric, which supplies central Japan, sells about 40 percent of its output to manufacturers including Toyota and Sharp Corp., the country's biggest maker of liquid-crystal-display televisions. Sharp today announced plans to close some lines at two plants in Mie and Nara prefectures and cut 380 temporary jobs at three factories.
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