Woe upon woe poured out of Tokyo yesterday, as the major companies backed up those rotten first half figures given in page five inside with downgraded forecasts and slashed budgets: Fujitsu Ltd cut its group earnings forecast for the year to March 31 to just $41m from a previous forecast of $82m and an actual $100m for the previous year, and said profits fell due to lower private capital investment and consumer spending hitting sales of computers, information systems andelectronics products; NEC Corp, whose full figures did not come through, saw unconsolidated current profit plunge 71% and cut its parent earnings forecast for the year again – it cut it once already, only in August; it is also cutting its investment and research and development expenditure and will cut recruitment to 1,950 people next year from 2,300 this; Hitachi Ltd said it did not see any profit growth in the year ending March 31 1994, saying that the effects of the bubble economy’s bursting will take time to dissipate; and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co Ltd will cut 30 executives’ pay by 10% from November to next March and will also cut year-end bonuses for managers by an unspecified amount.
