The number of people who killed themselves in Japan totalled 31,560 in 2010, exceeding 30,000 for the 13th-straight year, police said Friday.
The number, published in a preliminary report released by the National Police Agency, was 1,285 cases down from 2009, a 3.9-per-cent drop, DPA reported.
About 70 per cent of the suicides were men.
Japan sees an average of 86 suicides per day, and experts estimated that around 900 people in Japan contemplate suicide on any given day.
The nation's protracted economic troubles are considered primarily responsible for an increase in suicides since 1998 when their number topped 30,000 for the first time.