Japan's economy watcher sentiment registers sharpest decline in decade.

The diffusion index of confidence, a business sentiment indicator for the Japanese economy, logged the steepest plunge in over a decade in January amid concerns fueled by COVID-19 infection resurgence, Japanese government statistics showed Tuesday.

The figure, which measures the current business confidence compared to three months ago among "economy watchers," workers with jobs sensitive to economic trends like taxi drivers and restaurant staff, decreased 19.6 points from December to 37.9, according to the Cabinet Office.

It marked the sharpest fall since March 2011, when a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami disaster hit northeast Japan.

The office polled 2,050 workers on...