I would like to extend my sincerest appreciation for your patronage of TOKYO KEIKI.
In the first half of the fiscal year, the global economy continued to face severe conditions, including the impact of continued monetary tightening on the U. S. and European economies, the delay in the recovery of the Chinese economy, and the prolonged situation in Ukraine.
The Japanese economy is on a moderate recovery trend due to factors such as a pick-up in inbound tourism consumption. However, the outlook remained uncertain owing to concerns over the impact of the yen's depreciation against the backdrop of the interest rate differential between Japan and the U. S., price rises, and further stagnation of the Chinese economy.
In this business environment, our Group's first half results for the fiscal year under review showed a year-on-year increase in net sales of ¥607 million to ¥19.2 billion thanks to strong performance in foreign markets in Marine Systems Business and the depreciation of the yen. The operating loss improved ¥216 million to ¥399 million. Ordinary loss improved ¥64 million to ¥259 million and net loss attributable to owners of the parent was ¥237 million, unchanged from the same period of the previous fiscal year.
Incidentally, many of our Group's revenues are booked in the second half of the fiscal year, as our business with government agencies, which is the greater part of our sales, tends to be concentrated in the fourth quarter.
With regard to new products introduced in the first half of the fiscal year, we launched a labor-saving track inspection system in Railway Maintenance business, which is one of the growth drivers in TOKYO KEIKI Vision 2030. This product is installed in maintenance railway cars and automatically inspects and judges the condition of several track materials by AI, enabling more efficient, safe, and accurate inspections than conventional human inspections. We will expand our railway line maintenance business, starting with this product, in an effort to overcome the issues of railway safety and security as well as labor shortage caused by the declining birthrate and aging society.
As for the full-year consolidated earnings forecast, the Company has upwardly revised the forecast announced on May 12, 2023, in light of the cumulative results for the second quarter and the anticipated steady performance of Marine Systems Business from the third quarter onward, increasing net sales by ¥1.3 billion to ¥47 billion. For profit, we forecast a ¥360 million increase in operating profit to ¥1,710 million, a ¥310 million increase in ordinary profit to ¥1,860 million, and a ¥80 million increase in profit attributable to owners of parent to ¥1,290 million.
The Company plans to pay an ordinary dividend of ¥32.5 per share for the fiscal year under review, an increase of ¥2.5 per share from the previous fiscal year.
On behalf of the senior management and workforce at TOKYO KEIKI, I would like to close by asking all stakeholders for your ongoing and further support and cooperation.