JAPAN

Companies Expect Annual Profits to Rise About 20%: Corporate Japan chalked up higher profits last year for the first time in five years, and companies say profits will be even higher this year. To analysts and investors, however, the numbers have been far from impressive. Companies’ current, or pretax, profits rose about 9% for the year ended March 31, according to a Bloomberg Business News survey of 1,755 non-financial companies.