The Bank of Japan announced that business confidence among major Japanese companies improved in June compared to three months ago, marking the first improvement in two quarters. The central bank's quarterly survey showed a slight increase in the business confidence index (Tankan) among major Japanese companies such as automakers and electronics manufacturers, reaching +13 in June compared to 12 in the survey conducted in March. At the sector level, the iron and steel and paper industries saw improvements, while the automotive sector deteriorated due to the impact of US tariffs. Confidence among major retailers, banks, real estate companies, and other non-manufacturing companies fell by one point to +34, its first decline in two quarters, due to concerns about rising sales prices and consumption forecasts. The main index represents the percentage of companies that are positive about their business minus the percentage of companies that gave negative responses. Therefore, a positive number in the index means that the number of optimists exceeds the number of pessimists. Large manufacturers expect their business confidence index to decline by one point to +12 in the next survey in September, while large non-manufacturers expect the index to decline by seven points to +27. The latest survey was conducted from May 28 to June 30, targeting 8,911 companies, of which 99.2 percent responded. The Tankan index, which measures short-term economic expectations, is the most closely watched business confidence index in the Japanese economy, the world's third-largest.