OREANDA-NEWS. Toyota Tsusho Corporation reported consolidated net sales of 4,354.801 billion yen and net income of 40.257 billion yen, or 114.55 yen per share, for the six months ended September 30, 2014.

In the first six months of the fiscal year (April 1, 2014 - September 30, 2014), the global economy as a whole continued to gradually recover, with the U.S. taking a leading role. In the U.S., personal consumption recovered briskly, bolstered by the firm labor market and the impact of rising stock prices on assets. In Europe, credit was further eased and economy appeared to be bottoming out, but the growth was limited by the prolonged disinflation. The level of recovery in the ASEAN economies varied by country. Among emerging economies, while consumer spending and investment sentiment improved in India following the change of government, the Chinese economy decelerated and Brazil registered negative growth. The Russian economy slowed down due to capital outflow and sliding stock prices caused by Ukraine crisis.

Against such a backdrop, the Japanese economy saw active capital investments while private-sector demand had sluggish growth reflecting the impact of the increased consumption tax rate and unseasonal weathers.

Amid such an environment, the Toyota Tsusho Group's consolidated net sales increased 641.5 billion yen (17.3%) year on year to 4,354.8 billion yen in the six months ended September 30, 2014, partly due to the impact of an increase in trading volume of petroleum products and the unification of accounting period of some consolidated subsidiaries. Consolidated operating income totaled 74.354 billion yen, a decline of 2.642 billion yen (3.4%) compared with the same period of the previous fiscal year (76.996 billion), as sales, general and administrative costs increased.

Consolidated ordinary income amounted to 82.344 billion yen, down 4.050 billion yen (4.7%) from the same period of the previous fiscal year (86.394 billion yen). As a result, consolidated net income after taxes decreased 1.605 billion yen (3.8%) to 40.257 billion yen from 41.862 billion yen in the same period of the previous fiscal year.