Page 30 - Invited Paper Session (IPS) - Volume 2

IPS178 Kuniko M.
relatively plausible, and it does not require the additional burden of
constructing new statistics, many countries have adopted this methodology.
However, this method does not take quality of wholesale services into account
(United Nations [2010]). The Bank intends to construct the WSPI as a quality-
adjusted price index of wholesale services by surveying prices from companies,
as is done in the U.S. and Canada. This has satisfied a call of “Basic Policy for
the Fundamental Reform of Economic Statistics” (hereafter referred to as
Statistics Reform) of December 2016 from the Council on Economic and Fiscal
Policy, which suggested that the Bank should start surveying the prices of
wholesale services so as to improve the accuracy of the GDP statistics.

2-2-2. The Tankan
The Tankan is a statistical survey conducted by the Bank in accordance with
the Statistics Act. The Tankan aims to provide an accurate picture of business
trends for enterprises in Japan, thereby contributing to the appropriate
implementation of monetary policy. The survey is conducted quarterly, in
March, June, September, and December. In principle, survey results are
released at the beginning of April, July, October, and mid-December.
In order to capture the actual economic conditions accurately and respond
to rapidly changing financial and economic structures, the Bank takes great
care to ensure the appropriateness of Tankan survey items. In addition, the
Bank makes efforts on an ongoing basis to enhance the methodologies used
in the compilation of the Tankan. Non-sampling errors are also checked
through a number of measures.
In terms of conducting the Tankan survey, the Bank aims to improve user
convenience as well as to reduce the burden on survey respondents to the
greatest extent possible. While the Bank has added some necessary survey
items, it has also removed items that draw relatively less attention from users
and overlap with other sets of statistics, as in Table 3.
[Table 3] Changes to survey items

Month/year Additional items Removed items
Material Costs, Personnel
Expenses, Depreciation
Inflation Outlook (Outlook Prices,
Mar, 2014 Expenses, Financial
General Prices)
income, Financial
Expenses, etc.
Mar, 2017 R&D Investment -
Operating Profits, Fixed
Exchange Rates (Yen/Euro), Overseas Investment, Land
Around 2020 Business Activities (Overseas Sales, Purchasing Expenses*
Overseas Fixed Investment)
Software Investment*
Note: Asterisk (*) indicates a change of survey term from semi-annual to annual basis to obtain
fiscal-year figures.

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