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TOKYO, April 8 (Reuters) - The Tokyo Stock Exchange said it will delay a plan to extend trading hours so as to reduce power consumption, as Japan seeks to save electricity in Tokyo and northern prefectures in anticipation of peak summer demand.
The bourse said in a statement on Friday that it will push back the plan, which was due to start on May 9, until the autumn, when households and offices turn off air conditioners as temperatures fall.
Capacity is down 23 percent at Tokyo Electric Power Co and is also squeezed at Tohoku Electric Power Co after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami knocked out power plants, including Tokyo Electric's stricken Daiichi nuclear facility in Fukushima.
Japan's government is setting power-saving targets for both companies and households to avoid a wider collapse of power grids in the summer, the first state curbs on power use since the oil crisis of 1974. [ID:nLJE7EI02N]
Delaying longer trading hours, proposed by the Tokyo bourse in a bid to attract investors to Japanese stocks, would be the third time since 2007 that it has had to put plans for extending business hours on hold.
Cash trading at the TSE begins at 9 a.m. and ends at 3 p.m. (0000-0600 GMT) with a lunch break from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Although the exchange continued trading after the March 11 earthquake despite calls from some foreign brokers to close, the disaster will nonetheless also cause a delay in the release of earnings results and forecasts by some listed companies struggling to complete their accounting amid damage to production and supply chains, TSE CEO Atsushi Saito told Reuters in March.
That will mean companies will also be late in paying dividends for the business year. (Reporting by Tim Kelly; Editing by Michael Watson)