By David Shepardson

(Reuters) -A New York City plan to charge a daily toll on vehicles entering or remaining in the central business district got a boost on Monday from the U.S. Department of Transportation, which said the city had adequately assessed how the congestion charge would help the environment.

The department's Federal Highway Administration said the planned change will have no significant environmental impact and that a more comprehensive environmental analysis was unnecessary.

The decision allows the sponsors of the plan, the first of its kind in the U.S., to advance their application to the U.S. agency's Value Pricing Pilot Program which "provides transportation agencies with options to manage congestion through tolling and other pricing mechanisms," the FHA said.

Three Democratic lawmakers from New Jersey - Senator Bob Menendez and representatives Josh Gottheimer and Bill Pascrell blasted the decision saying the plan was "nothing more than a cash grab to fund" the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Menendez has introduced legislation that would cut 50% of federal highway grant funding to New York state if the plan goes ahead.

In May, USDOT approved release of the final environmental assessment for New York's congestion pricing plan for public review.

The city wants to charge a daily variable toll for vehicles entering or remaining within the central business district, defined as between 60th Street in Midtown Manhattan and Battery Park on Manhattan's southern tip.

Following entry into a tolling agreement, tolling could begin up to 310 days later, the city said in May.

New York City, which has the most congested traffic of any U.S. city, would become the first major city in the U.S. to follow London, which implemented a similar charge in 2003.

New York lawmakers approved the plan in 2019 to provide funding to improve mass transit by using tolls to manage traffic in central Manhattan. The plan was originally projected to start in 2021 but the federal government under President Donald Trump took no action.

By Jeff Mason and Jarrett Renshaw

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Monday divvied up $42 billion among the nation's 50 states and U.S. territories to make access to high-speed broadband universal by 2030, as it launched a new publicity campaign for President Joe Biden's economic policies.

The funding under the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment Program was authorized by the $1 trillion 2021 infrastructure law Biden championed. The spending will be based on a newly released Federal Communications Commission coverage map that details gaps in access.

Texas and California - the two most populous U.S. states - top the funding list at $3.1 billion and $1.9 billion, respectively. But other, less populous states like Virginia, Alabama and Louisiana cracked the top 10 list for funding due to lack of broadband access. These states have large rural areas with less internet connectivity than their major cities.

"It's the biggest investment in high-speed internet ever. Because for today's economy to work for everyone, internet access is just as important as electricity, or water, or other basic services," Biden said in a White House address on Monday.

The awards range from $27 million to U.S. territories like U.S. Virgin Islands to over $3.3 billion for Texas, with every state receiving a minimum of $107 million.

The announcement kicks off the second leg of Biden's tour highlighting how legislation passed when his Democratic Party controlled Congress will affect average Americans, as his 2024 re-election bid gears up.

As part of the sales pitch, Biden is also set to give what White House officials describe as a major economic speech on Wednesday in Chicago, laying out so-called "Bidenomics," according to a memo on Monday from senior advisers Anita Dunn and Mike Donilon to congressional Democrats and other allies.

The 2024 election will in part be seen as a referendum on Biden's handing of the economy. Job creation and low unemployment are the positives while elevated inflation and the knock-on effect of higher interest rates have stoked fears of a recession.

More than half - 54% - of Americans disapprove of how Biden is handing his job, while just 35% of respondents approved of his stewardship of the economy, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted earlier this month. Democrats lost control of the House of Representatives in the 2022 midterm elections.

The administration estimates there are some 8.5 million locations in the U.S. that lack access to broadband connections.

Broadband companies such as Verizon (NYSE:VZ), Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA), Charter Communications (NASDAQ:CHTR) and AT&T (NYSE:T) have been reluctant to provide access to low-population, rural communities because the investments are expensive and the regions do not offer a lot of subscribers. The lack of broadband access drew attention during COVID-19 shutdowns that forced students into online schooling.

States are expected to submit initial plans later this year that will unlock 20% of the funding. Once the plans are finalized, which could take to 2025, the government will release the remaining money.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The World Bank said it had approved on Friday a $700 million operation for Mexico to promote public policies to create economic opportunities and expand social security for women.

The operation is set to help close gender gaps, provide access to better jobs, improve safety on public transport and systems to prevent gender-based violence, an urgent issue in a country where on average some 20 women are killed every day.

The project also looks to expand social security coverage to cover all domestic workers - who are mostly women - to protect them against economic blows. Some 72% of domestic workers in Mexico do not receive any sort of work benefits, according to the country's statistics agency.

The operation will also focus on expanding efficient, low-emission modes of transport.

"These measures are expected to improve the perception and safety of women when using non-motorized and public transport," the World Bank said in a statement, helping women avoid cars and reducing the transport sector's overall carbon footprint.

Public transportation is the second-most common place where sexual violence against women in Mexico takes place, according to an Enkoll poll published earlier this year by newspaper El Pais.

The transport reforms should help women better access employment and education, it said.

"Improving women's access to economic opportunities is key to improving their productivity and income, thus reducing inequalities in Mexico," Mark Thomas, the bank's Mexico, Colombia, and Venezuela director said in a statement.

By Pete Schroeder

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Big U.S. lenders are expected to show they have ample capital to weather any fresh turmoil in the banking sector during this week's Federal Reserve health checks, although resulting investor payouts are likely to dip slightly, analysts said.

The central bank on Wednesday will release the results of its bank "stress tests" which assess how much capital banks would need to withstand a severe economic downturn.

The annual exercise, introduced following the 2007-2009 financial crisis, is integral to banks' capital planning, dictating how much cash they can return to shareholders via dividends and share buybacks.

The 2023 tests come in the wake of this year's banking crisis in which Silicon Valley Bank and two other lenders failed. They found themselves on the wrong end of Fed interest rate hikes, suffering large unrealized losses on their U.S. Treasury bond holdings which spooked uninsured depositors.

Wall Street lenders including Citigroup Inc (NYSE:C), Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) , JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM), Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE:GS), Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC), and Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) usually attract the most attention. But with continued investor jitters over the sector, smaller lenders including Capital One, U.S. Bancorp, and Citizens are likely to be in the spotlight too.

Despite the turmoil, and the exam being the hardest in years, bank analysts and executives expect the 23 lenders being tested will show capital in excess of regulatory minimums.

"The 2023 Fed Stress Test throws the kitchen sink at banks and allows them to show that the largest banks can handle one of the toughest tests yet," Wells Fargo analysts wrote on Thursday.

"Dividends should be secure, and banks should have excess capital to return to shareholders under most circumstances, even if at a slower pace than in the past."

The industry has performed well in recent years, although the Fed has faced criticism after the spring bank failures for not probing bank weaknesses for rising rates in prior tests.

Last year, the Fed found banks would suffer a combined $612 billion in losses in a severe economic downturn, but that would still leave them roughly twice the capital required under Fed rules.

This year's test is even tougher. The Fed's "severely adverse" scenario envisages the unemployment rate jumping 6.5 percentage points, compared with 5.8 percentage points in 2022. That's because the test gets harder as the real economy grows stronger, and the real U.S. jobless rate is lower in 2023.

The test will also envisage a 40% slump in the prices of commercial real estate, an area of greater concern this year as lingering pandemic-era office vacancies stress borrowers.

How well a bank performs dictates the size of its "stress capital buffer" - an extra cushion of capital the Fed requires for banks to weather the hypothetical economic downturn, on top of regulatory minimums required to support daily business. The larger the losses under the test, the larger the buffer.

The Bank Policy Institute, a Washington bank lobby group, said on Thursday it anticipates banks' hypothetical losses will be slightly higher this year. Average capital levels will fall by 3.2% in 2023, up slightly from 3% in 2022, it predicted.

RBC analysts predicted earlier this month that hypothetical credit losses will be largely driven by commercial real estate exposure, and that some banks would face higher buffers.

That, combined with impending new capital hikes and uncertainty over the economic outlook, will make banks slightly more conservative about payouts this year, said analysts.

"Capital return expectations continue to get ratcheted down given looming headwinds," said Jefferies analysts this month.

Last year's test was relatively straightforward partly because the Fed did not have a Vice Chair for Supervision since Randal Quarles stepped down in 2021. This year, the tests are being overseen by his successor Michael Barr, who has said he wants to make them more dynamic by applying multiple scenarios.

This year, for example, also includes an "exploratory market shock" for the eight largest and most complex banks. While that will not affect capital, it will be used to assess potentially employing multiple scenarios in future stress test exercises.

"In an environment of ever-changing risks, stress tests can quickly lose their relevance if their assumptions and scenarios remain static," said Barr in December.

By Tom Westbrook

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Oil was slightly higher on Monday as an abortive weekend mutiny by Russian mercenaries raised questions about crude supply, while stocks lacked direction as investors waited for more clarity around the situation.

Brent crude futures were last up 0.4% at $74.14 having earlier drifted as high as $74.80. MSCI's index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan dipped to a three-week low before floating around either side of flat.

Japan's Nikkei bounced around, too, and was last trading flat. The safe-haven yen rose marginally, helped by hints at possible government intervention to support it and by a summary showing a central bank board member pushed in June for a debate on its yield curve control policy.

S&P 500 and European futures rose 0.3%.

Russian mercenaries made a short-lived rebellion on Saturday, seizing the southern city of Rostov and advancing on Moscow demanding the removal of Russian military commanders in charge of the war in Ukraine.

The private Wagner army then withdrew after striking a deal guaranteeing their safety and the exile of their leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, to Belarus. The consequences for the Ukraine war were not clear, though the challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin's authority was the starkest in decades of his leadership.

"Geopolitical risk amid internal instability in Russia has increased," said Rystad Energy analysts Jorge Leon. "As such, we are likely to see a marginal uptick in oil prices in the coming days, if the situation does not deteriorate."

Analysts at RBC Capital Markets said one concern was the possibility of martial law in Russia and its effect on the workforce at ports and production facilities.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the turmoil in Russia could take months to play out, while Italy's foreign minister said it had shattered the "myth" of Russian unity.

CHINA FOCUS

Elsewhere markets were already on edge about a darkening growth outlook, as China's post-pandemic recovery stalls and global interest rates remain high, and traders were reluctant to take any new positions on the basis of Russian events.

The risk-sensitive Australian dollar was steady at $0.6679. The euro nursed last week's modest drop at $1.0906 and sterling held at $1.2728.

"I don't think the market can get its head around working out if there are implications," said Ray Attrill, head of foreign exchange strategy at National Australia Bank (OTC:NABZY) in Sydney.

"People may think that ultimately Putin's grip on power is weakened here. Maybe the Ukrainians may be emboldened to be upping their counteroffensives," he said, but without obvious progress traders in Asia would be focused on China.

On that front, S&P Global (NYSE:SPGI) followed most Wall Street banks and cut its 2023 GDP growth forecast for China on Sunday.

The yuan opened sharply lower onshore, catching up with offshore falls on Thursday and Friday, but the People's Bank of China fixed the midpoint of the its trading band slightly firmer than some expectations, which perhaps dampened further falls.

The yuan was last at 7.2094 per dollar.

The Japanese yen, which has been on a slide as global interest rate expectations rise and Japan's central bank stays steadfastly dovish, bounced as much as 0.3% to 143.27 per dollar, before steadying back to 143.51.

Japan's top currency diplomat Masato Kanda said on Monday authorities will respond to any excessive moves and did not rule out intervening, as happened last year. The Bank of Japan should also discuss revising its yield curve control policy at an early stage, a board member was quoted as saying at a June policy meeting, a summary of opinions released on Monday showed.

BEIJING (Reuters) -S&P Global said it has cut its 2023 GDP growth forecast for China after May data showed a post-COVID recovery was faltering in the world's second-largest economy.

"We have reduced our 2023 GDP growth forecast to 5.2%, from 5.5%," it said in a research note on Sunday.

"China's recovery should continue but at an uneven pace, with investment and industry lagging."

S&P is the first major international credit agency to cut its forecasts for China's economy this year, although several major banks including Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) have lowered their estimates this month.

Goldman Sachs reduced its forecast from 6% to 5.4%, citing persistently weak confidence and the cloud over the property market as stronger-than-expected headwinds.

China's economy stumbled in May with property investment slumping further, industrial output and retail sales growth missing forecasts, adding to expectations that Beijing will need to do more to shore up a shaky post-pandemic recovery.

China will roll out more stimulus to support a slowing economy this year, sources involved in policy discussions have said.

By Tetsushi Kajimoto

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's top currency diplomat Masato Kanda said on Monday authorities will respond to any excessive moves in the currency market, warning that recent yen moves were "rapid."

When asked about the chance of currency intervention, Kanda told reporters he would not rule out any options.

"Regardless of the direction, it's generally not good for the economy if exchange rates move excessively in a way that deviates from economic fundamentals," Kanda said.

He added that authorities were focusing on the pace of moves in the yen, rather than its levels.

Investors have been selling yen after the Bank of Japan (BOJ) kept interest rates ultra-low last week and vowed to maintain its massive stimulus, in contrast to other central banks tightening monetary policy to combat rising inflation.

The dollar hit a seven-month high against the yen at 143.63 in New York on Friday.

By Gibran Naiyyar Peshimam

KHUIRATTA, Pakistan-administered Kashmir (Reuters) - Hameed Iqbal Bhatti had prospered over two decades working in Saudi Arabia, but after returning to Pakistan three years ago, he was getting desperate.

The economy had suffered in the pandemic and his restaurant business closed. With work avenues drying up and sky-high inflation blowing a hole in his budget, the 47-year-old cobbled together $7,600 for a trafficker to smuggle him into Europe, where he hoped to rebuild the life he once had, his brother Muhammad Sarwar Bhatti, 53, told Reuters.

"He told me that he would start afresh for his children's future and the life he wanted for them," the elder Bhatti said at the family home in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

A boat that left Libya carrying the younger Bhatti and hundreds of others sank off Greece last week, in one of the deadliest migrant disasters of recent years. He is missing and presumed dead, according to his brother, highlighting the perils faced by people who seek to enter Europe illegally.

Pakistanis have been making these journeys in increasing numbers in recent months because of the country's economic crisis, according to more than a dozen migrants and their relatives, experts and data reviewed by Reuters.

Cash-strapped Pakistan's $350 billion economy is in a meltdown, with inflation at a record 38%. A rapidly depreciating currency and external deficit led the government to adopt drastic measures over the past year to avoid default.

But with that came a huge hit to growth and jobs. The industrial sector, Pakistan's economic engine, provisionally contracted almost 3% in the current financial year - troubling for a nation of 230 million with more than 2 million new entrants to the labour force annually.

Official unemployment data have not been published in two years. Hafeez Pasha, a former finance minister and an economist renowned for his work on Pakistan's labour force, put the jobless rate at a record "11-12%, conservatively".

Pakistan's information ministry did not respond to questions from Reuters about economic factors fuelling migration.

PUSHED TO THE BRINK

The 102,000 detections of irregular migrants at the European Union's external border between January and May was 12% higher than the previous year and the most since 2016, according to Frontex, the bloc's border and coast guard agency.

Crossings of the central Mediterranean via Libya, mainly to Italy and Greece, nearly doubled, accounting for about half of the total. Currently, Pakistanis are the No. 3 nationality registered in Italy coming from Libya, after Egyptians and Bangladeshis, a Frontex spokesperson told Reuters in an email.

Of the detections this year through May, 4,971 were from Pakistan, a record for the country on the central Mediterranean route in a single year, according to Frontex data that go back to 2009.

Pakistan on Monday observed a day of mourning after the latest boat disaster. At least 209 Pakistanis were believed to be on board, according to official data based on information provided by relatives.

Even before last week's sinking, numerous Pakistanis had perished in the Mediterranean this year.

Muhammad Nadeem, 38, was aboard a boat that sank off Libya in February, killing more than 70.

Nadeem, from the eastern city of Gujrat, had three children and also supported his younger sister and mother. He worked as a salesman at a furniture store, but his wages were modest and rising inflation had made their situation precarious, according to his mother, Kosar Bibi.

"We used to make ends meet, he could feed his family. But it had become impossible", she told Reuters in their cramped three-room home where seven people live.

Bibi said her son paid someone he knew to arrange the trip to Italy, via Libya.

"He said, 'Mother, our conditions will improve'. He said he would send me to do Hajj, he would get his sister married," Bibi recalled.

Most who make the journey are unskilled or labourers and it is difficult for them to obtain work visas, Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) told Reuters. But by living frugally in Europe they are able to save and send money home - a prospect made more attractive by the Pakistan rupee's 35% depreciation against the euro and dollar in the past 18 months.

"The way the situation is here right now, people think that foreign currency is going up in value, so whatever they earn it will multiply when they send it back," said Sarwar Warraich, an FIA official based in Gujrat.

LURE OF WORK ABROAD

Nadeem only had to look around his local area to see what Europe could offer.

"He saw friends and people in his neighbourhood had gone. He saw that they were successful, and hoped god would make him successful too," said Nadeem's cousin, Muhammad Zubair.

A few kilometres from Nadeem's home, Muhammad Nazim was building a multi-storey vacation home in Gujrat when Reuters visited in the spring. Nazim, 54, said he lived in the Italian city of Ferrara, running a construction business, but was visiting Pakistan.

"Our houses are built (in Italy) too, we stay there, but the reason for building them in Pakistan is that we come here with our children after a year or two to spend a few months and relax," said Nazim.

"Here in Gujrat, at least one person from every household is abroad, either Europe or Arab countries."

Nazim, who said he entered Europe illegally via Turkey in the 1990s and eventually obtained residency, said he understood why people wanted to leave Pakistan. "What can a poor man do," he said. "The conditions of the country are now like this."

Also among the dead on Nadeem's ill-fated vessel was Muhammad Ali, 21, from Bhojpur, in Gujrat district.

"Even the educated class are having lots of trouble getting jobs" in Pakistan, Ali's cousin Anish Raza told Reuters at their family home. "A person's desires make one desperate."

Across the lane, Haji Ilyas, 70, was building a palatial home. Ilyas, who owns four vehicles, including an imported SUV and two tractors, said three of his sons had gone abroad illegally, two to Spain.

"Those who are getting money from abroad, they are able to survive," Ilyas said, puffing on his hookah.

The FIA said it had clamped down on unauthorised crossings of Pakistan's borders but noted that many who seek to enter Europe illegally depart with valid visas for Turkey or Libya before venturing onward.

Limited data the agency shared with Reuters showed that 401 people were caught crossing Pakistan's borders illegally in the first four months of 2023, up about 50% from a year earlier, while 15,371 deportees were repatriated in the same period, mostly from Turkey and Greece.

'BACK TO SQUARE ONE'

With foreign exchange reserves to cover less than a month's imports, Pakistan risks running out of money. An International Monetary Fund program expires this month, and the government would need to get into a new programme within the calendar year or face likely default.

Pakistan is a top exporter of labour, and remittances have helped keep the country afloat. Nearly 830,000 people registered as overseas workers last year, the highest since 2016, official data show.

But legal migration opportunities are limited, and many migrants make arrangements through agents who often present irregular migration as a quicker, cheaper, or the only way to reach Europe, according to the Migrant Resource Centre, an EU-funded organisation that provides information and counselling to migrants.

One who took this route was Israr Mirza, 29, who said he was desperate enough to risk the journey to the West after he was laid off last year from his job at a textile factory in Lahore.

"Local jobs when available didn't pay me enough to support my wife, three kids and father, who has cancer," he said.

College-educated Mirza took a loan, bought a plane ticket to Turkey and paid a smuggler who arranged his passage by land into Greece in September. He made it, but was caught and sent back to Turkey, then detained and ultimately deported to Pakistan, where he recounted the ordeal to Reuters at Islamabad airport in March.

"I don't know if I'm happy to have returned alive," he said. "I am back to square one, with no income and now loans to pay."

By Yoruk Bahceli

(Reuters) - Savers across the euro zone are dashing for government debt to secure returns on their cash as banks struggle to keep up with surging interest rates.

Leading the way is Italy, which sold a record 18.2 billion euro retail bond this month to increase domestic holdings of its debt.

But that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Portugal has shifted half of this year's funding to savers, Belgium expects a ninefold increase in retail bond sales, and Spanish savers are piling into Treasury bills.

The scale of demand is a surprise to debt managers and underscores the rapid return of savers to dedicated debt programmes that they have shown little interest in for a decade.

Their return marks the latest structural shift since high inflation drove the European Central Bank to pull out of negative rates and hike borrowing costs steadily over the last year.

For issuers, it's a sign of confidence that new buyers are moving in as the ECB winds down its bond holdings.

"We thought that these movements somehow would lose steam, because savings are limited," said Rui Amaral, board member at Portugal's debt agency.

"Portugal is growing fast... but savings are not growing as fast as for us to (have foreseen) a continuing surge in these retail investments."

Having planned 3.5 billion euros for the whole year, Portugal has already sold around 10 billion euros of new savings certificates to retail investors, Amaral said, up from 4.6 billion euros in 2022 when demand started returning and a mere 500 million euros in 2021.

It has slashed this year's bond and treasury bill sales by 8.9 billion euros in favour of savings certificates, of which it expects to have sold 12 billion euros by year-end -- half its 24.8 billion euro 2023 funding programme.

"Banks like everywhere else in Europe are not very fast in increasing remuneration of deposits. So what you see is just an influx from a lot of bank deposits being transferred to (savings) certificates," Amaral said.

This means around 15% of outstanding Portuguese government debt now sits with retail investors, versus 10% in recent years.

Belgium meanwhile has issued 390 million euros of state notes to retail investors this year, the highest since 2011.

Debt agency director Maric Post expects issuance of up to 1 billion euros by year-end, four times the 250 million euros pencilled in for 2023 and up from 109 million euros in 2022.

This would take demand for retail bonds back to levels seen in the early 2000s, Post said.

WHY NOT?

In Spain, individuals held 15% of all outstanding Treasury bills as of March, up from almost zero since 2015 and the highest level on record according to Treasury data going back to 2002.

But individuals still only hold 1% of its 1.3 trillion euro public debt overall, a spokesperson said. Scope Ratings says Spain should tap these investors to diversify its refinancing risk and contain borrowing costs.

Spanish banks pay the lowest rate on deposits among big euro zone economies. One-year deposits return 1.3%, compared with 3.7% on 12-month bills.

"Suddenly you realize your money parked in deposits is paying you peanuts, when it could pay you something much more juicy in government bonds," said Societe Generale (OTC:SCGLY) rates strategist Jorge Garayo.

Dedicated retail debt such as that sold by Portugal and Belgium helps non-professional investors avoid losses from market fluctuations, provide tax advantages and are easier to buy.

In France, where millions of savers deposit money in special accounts paying a regulated rate, demand comes from banks themselves, said debt agency head Cyril Rousseau.

The institutions holding the deposits are buying French inflation-linked bonds to generate the 3% rate they pay savers, which is partly indexed to inflation, he said.

Domestic investors bought 63% of a 3 billion euro bond linked to French inflation sold this month, and banks' asset and liability management divisions took 37%, signalling most of the debt sale was "driven by the need of investing the regulated retail deposits," Rousseau said.

BUFFER

Euro zone household ownership of government debt varies, from practically zero in places like Germany to the high share in Portugal, ECB research shows.

Savers are not expected to replace the trillion-dollar funds that buy the lion's share of government debt, but they can be a powerful buffer during a crisis.

Italy first launched retail bonds in 2012 amid the euro zone debt crisis, reducing reliance on international investors as borrowing costs surged.

Savers also bought a record 5.7 billion of Belgian debt in December 2011.

"We saw a very strong recovery of spreads after that issuance," Post recalled, referring to the additional borrowing cost Belgium pays over Germany.

"So that was always also one of the reasons why we kept the product on the shelf, even when the levels were very low and the interest from the public was very low."

By Kantaro Komiya

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's factory sentiment likely improved in the second quarter for the first time since mid-2021, thanks to an eased chip supply crunch for automakers, a Reuters poll of economists showed on Friday.

While slowing global demand has dragged on manufacturers' recovery, the service-sector mood is expected to have extended gains above pre-pandemic levels led by a tourism boom, helping to underpin the world's third-largest economy.

The Bank of Japan's (BOJ) closely-followed "tankan" business survey is set to show the big manufacturers' confidence index rebounded to 3 in June from 1 in March, according to the median estimate of 16 economists in the poll.

It would mark the index's first increase in seven quarters.

"Although sentiment deteriorated among sectors like chemicals and production machinery on global economic slowdown, car makers' mood greatly improved thanks to mitigated semiconductor shortage," said Shumpei Fujita, economist at Mitsubishi UFJ (NYSE:MUFG) Research and Consulting.

Staying on a solid course, the big non-manufacturers' mood index likely rose for a fifth quarter to 22, the highest since June 2019, from 20, the poll showed, with analysts citing strong inbound tourist demand and the government's May decision to downgrade COVID-19's disease classification.

Looking ahead, manufacturers would see further improvement in their sentiment three months ahead, while service-sector companies' confidence would worsen slightly due to consumer inflation running at over four decade highs.

The tankan will also show large firms plan to ramp up capital expenditure by 10.1% in the current fiscal year, according to the poll, well above the 3.2% increase projected in the March survey.

The BOJ will release the latest tankan results on July 3 at 8:50 a.m. local time (July 2 at 2350 GMT).

Separate industrial output data due on June 30 at 8:50 a.m. (June 29, 2350 GMT) will likely show a 1.0% month-on-month decrease in May, the first contraction in four months, hurt by the slackening in global demand.

For May, jobless and job availability indicators were seen unchanged, while retail sales likely rose 5.4% from a year earlier for their 15th month of expansion, the poll also found.