日本地震后的经济波动

日本近期发生了9.0级大地震，同时还引起了一系列的灾难。日本的大地震和海啸不仅给当地社会和经济带来毁灭性的打击,也影响了全球的产业链.一些中国的电子企业正面临着生产断线的困难。

Reporter:

The disaster has suspended local industries' production activities in quake-hit areas of Japan. Imports and exports have been greatly affected. Manager, Na Xinyi from Bangchan International Trading Company based in Shanghai, says he has temporarily lost communication with Japanese suppliers.

"So far, I can't get hold of some of our product suppliers. Such situations will affect production, but we don't know how long it will take and how much losses we will sustain."

The disaster-hit region in Northeast Japan gathers many industrial bases including automobile, nuclear power stations, chemical and semiconductor plants, taking up to eight percent of the country's GDP. So far, three major auto-companies Toyota, Honda and Nissan with more than 22 factories have been closed down.

The disaster has caused a global supply chain crisis. For China, Japan is the third largest trade partner. According to Chinese custom statistics from February this year, bilateral trade volume in total was almost 49 billion U.S. dollars, a 29 percent increase from the same time last year. The heaviest strike is the imports to China. Na Xinyi says many companies in China are downstream companies in the supply chain in need of raw materials and electronic parts from Japan.

"Many raw materials which must be imported from Japan are especially in demand by our customers. So if they stop transporting to China for some time, then many industries will be affected in the next step of the manufacturing process."

But, the tragedy means a great demand for re-construction. As the world's largest building material and steel manufacturing country, China can contribute to the efforts. Economist, Zuo Xiaolei from Galaxy Securities, says the long term prospect for bilateral trade is bright.

"In the future when Japan is in need of building materials like steel, China could be one of the major exporting countries to meet its demand. Actually, every time after a huge disaster, such as the Wenchuan earthquake and Katrina hurricane to America, to a certain extent, all helped the later economy to grow. So I think in the long run, the disaster for Japan and the countries around it will provide an upward drag in the economy."

Chinese A-share market plummetted sharply on Friday right after the disaster occurred. But experts predict the trend will pick up momentum this week and focus again on domestic economy developments. The explosions at the nuclear power station in Japan over the weekend has given high pressure on nuclear power board in the Chinese stock market, giving other energy shares a short boost for the moment.

For CRI, I'm Liu Min.