Comments
Japan’s nuclear crisis and the devastations caused by last Friday’s earthquake and tsunami are unlikely to trigger a global recession as happened in the aftermath of the collapse of the US investment bank Lehman Brothers three years ago, according to leading economists.
However, they expressed fears that automobile and electronic industries around the world, especially in Asia, Europe and the US, may face manufacturing delays, if the Japanese production of components remain crippled for a long period.
Concerns over a renewed global recession or a bankruptcy of Japan are unfounded, said Mr Thomas Mayer, Chief Economist, Deutsche Bank, Germany’s largest bank.
Even though Japan is the world’s third largest economy, its share of the global gross domestic product (GDP) is below 5 per cent. Therefore, the consequences for the global economy from the catastrophe will be very minimal, Mr Mayer said in an interview to German economic daily Handelsblatt.
In the areas hit by the earthquake and tsunami, relatively less industries are located, but the main problem is disruption of power supply. The Deutsche Bank estimates that the power cuts could reduce monthly growth of the Japanese GDP by 0.1 per cent, Mr Mayer said.
The Japanese economy has to cope with a second successive quarter of negative growth this year after a strong turnaround in 2010.
Before the earthquake and tsunami, the Deutsche Bank had forecast a 1.6 per cent growth for the Japanese economy this year. This will have to be corrected downwards depending on whether the nuclear crisis intensifies and how long it takes to start the reconstruction, he said.
Mr Mayer estimated the costs of reconstruction will be much higher than around ¥10 billion invested by the Government after the Kobe earthquake if the situation at the crippled reactor complex in Fukushima worsens and becomes a full-blown nuclear catastrophe.
In the Kobe earthquake, much more industries were destroyed, but the number of casualties were around 6,500, which is about half of the estimated loss of lives in the present disaster, he said.
Mr Klaus Juergen Gern of the Institute for World Economy at the University of Kiel said that the earthquake, tsunami and the unfolding nuclear crisis in Japan could affect the supply of electronic components worldwide, especially chips which are crucial for a wide range of industries, including the automobile sector.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.