A Bank of Japan official comments on the divergence seen in the Tankan:

  • Many manufacturers cited rising raw material and fuel costs, overseas economic slowdown and weak chip demand as factors weighing on sentiment
  • Non-manufacturers cited the fading impact of covid-19 pandemic, and govt tourism subsidies as contributing to the improvement in sentiment

The background to this is what was noted in the Q1 Tankan report:

  • big manufacturers' sentiment index hits lowest level since Dec 2020
  • big non-manufacturers' sentiment index hits highest level since Dec 2019
  • big manufacturers sentiment index worsens for fifth straight quarter

Tankan post is here.

boj tankan 03 April 2023