Women now account for 5.9 pct of executives at major Japanese companies, up 0.8 percentage point from last year, a Jiji Press survey showed on Thursday.

The result is far below the figure of 17.3 pct reported in a similar survey of major companies across the world by U.S. financial firm MSCI Inc. in 2017.

Meanwhile, a Cabinet Office survey of all listed companies in Japan has put the share of female executives at 3.7 pct.

In the Jiji survey of 500 firms listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s first section, the number of women in the posts of director, executive officer and auditor this year came to 443, against a total of 7,491 executives at the firms.

Women are serving in executive posts at 311 of the surveyed firms.