A total of 3,141 companies went bankrupt in the April-September period, up 6.9 percent year on year, a local credit research company has reported. It marked the first increase in corporate bankruptcies in three years, according to a survey conducted by Tokyo Shoko Research Ltd. The firm said many companies experienced difficulties in repaying financial aid they had received from the government in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Regionally, 29 prefectures including Hokkaido and Kyoto, saw bankruptcy cases growing during the period. Meanwhile, Osaka, Hiroshima, and other 14 prefectures saw the bankruptcy number decrease. The service industry saw a total of 215 bankruptcy cases, the highest among different industries and up for the eighth straight month, while the construction industry saw the fastest growth in the number of bankruptcy cases, which was up by 29.8 percent from a year earlier.