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The equipment investments in the area of transport in fiscal 1974 showed
a trend of decrease for the first time in 1970s at \4,316,700,000,000 for public
work expense and \1,000,000,000,000 by commercial transport enterprisers or
0.9 percent and 6.6 percent below those in the previous year respectively. In
reality, however, an unprecedentedly great decline was noted following the years
of 1973 and 1974 (Fig. 2-2-1).
The public work expense relative to transport has thus emained stagnant
for two years continuously due mainly to the total demand suppression policy
enforced continuously to quiet the abnormal inflation from the latter half of
1973 and partly to freezing of the start of Honshu-Shikoku Bridge.
The decrease in the equipment investment of the trade of commercial transport
seems to be due to such factors as the substantial decrease of the equipment
investment in the shipping trade in fiscal 1973, suppression of the public investments
started from fiscal 1973 and decline of the investment intention of the transport
enterprises as the result of the de- creasing demand for cargo transport and
little growth of passenger transport through infiltration of the recession in
fiscal 1974 and also that the management of the transport enterprises which
has been under severe conditions has further been aggravated under the influence
of the severe inflation after the oil crisis, resulting in little allowance
for investment in the industry. Now looking the status of raising the fund for
equipment investment of the commercial transport business in recent years, the
proportion of the internal fund is only in the order of 20 percent, the rest
being dependent on the external fund such as loans from financial organizations.
Thus, the transport enterprises have die management oppressed by the burden
of interests for the loans for equipment investments.
In the railway and other similar trades, the equipment investments are mostly
of the character which is not connected to yielding the profit directly, being
mainly for alleviation of congestion, improvement of the service, safety measures
such as graded crossing and prevention of hazards and thus constitutes a great
burden for the transport business which under the current level of transportation
fare has to count the working loss.
In addition to the foregoing, increasing costs of construction works and
difficulty of acquiring the sites for transportation facilities may be cited
as another major factors restricting the equipment investments.
Fig. 2-2-2 shows the trend of increasing cost of construction of the transit
year after year. Such rise of die Site, civil engineering and other expenses
is impeding the progress of the construction work. The rise of the construction
cost was particularly noticeable in fiscal 1973 and fiscal 1974. Further, in
connection with the acquisition of land for, or execution of the construction
of, railway, road, airport and other facilities, it is not rare that the talks
with the local inhabitants come to a deadlock with respect to the problem of
conserving the environment so that the work is delayed considerably.
In order to resolve the delay in equipment investment seen in the presence
of transport bottlenecks, etc. and promote the modernization of transport, improvement
of the service level, securing of traffic safety and prevention of traffic hazards,
a still larger equipment investment will be required. But, when the financial
difficulty of the government as well as local public organizations under the
stable growth is considered, the equipment investments from now on will have
to be advanced preponderantly and effectively in to cope with the trend of demand
and social requirements.
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