The number of Japanese companies going bankrupt in April-September exceeded 5,000 in 10 years.

In Japan, the number of bankruptcy companies rose 18% from the same period last year to 5,95 in April-September this year, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun and others reported, citing the announcement of Tokyo Business Research.

It is the first time in 10 years that the number of bankrupt companies has exceeded 5,000 in half a year since April-September 2014.

From April to September this year, the number of bankrupt companies increased from last year in all industries except finance and insurance, and all nine metropolitan districts showed an increase by region.

Kyodo pointed to the rise in the number of corporate bankruptcies as a result of a shortage of workers and rising prices for imported materials due to the low yen.

Nikkei also said that many companies go bankrupt because they cannot reflect the increase in costs caused by inflation in their selling prices, and predicted that interest rate hikes will be a factor in the increase in the number of bankruptcies in the future.

The Bank of Japan raised its key interest rate in March this year, ending its negative interest rate policy, before raising the rate to 0.25% from 0% to 0.1% in July.