The Economic Impact of the Earthquake in Japan
The impact of Japanese earthquake on China's economy and industry can be divided into direct impact and indirect impact. The direct impact includes two aspects: on the one hand, the direct property and investment losses of China enterprises in Japanese earthquake-stricken areas, but according to reports, this part is rare or even non-existent. On the other hand, as a close neighbor of Japan and one of Japan's largest trading partners, China's infrastructure has been destroyed, the transportation system has been in chaos, and industrial enterprises such as automobiles, steel and semiconductors have stopped production, which will inevitably have a direct impact on China's import and export trade with Japan, thus affecting China's economic growth and industrial development. Its indirect influence mainly includes three aspects. First, the earthquake and subsequent secondary disasters have brought huge economic losses to Japan, making the already fragile Japanese economy worse. As an influential economy in the world and one of the engines of this round of currency flooding, the decline of Japanese economic growth will inevitably lead to concerns that it will drag down the global economic recovery, thus affecting the external environment of China's economic growth. Second, Japan injected a lot of funds to cope with the possible shortage of funds in the financial market after the earthquake, which will not only further worsen Japan's financial situation, but also affect the exchange rate of the yen, thus affecting the exchange rate of the RMB and the stability of the global financial market. Thirdly, some industries in Japan will be rebuilt, laid out and integrated after the earthquake, and the reconstruction work in the disaster area needs a lot of raw materials, infrastructure and labor. China, as the world's largest producer of building materials and steel products, the largest country in the global construction market and an exporter of construction services, should have a certain impact on Japanese post-disaster reconstruction. The impact degree is 1. The earthquake will lead to the decline of Japan's economic growth rate, which will deepen the uncertainty of the sustained recovery of the global economy in the short term, but it will have little impact in the long run. Although accurate post-disaster statistics have not yet been published, casualties, infrastructure damage and a large number of factories have obviously caused damage to the Japanese economy. Economists predict that the losses caused by the earthquake may be as high as 10 trillion yen, which will reduce Japan's GDP growth by 3 percentage points this year, and the biggest impact on GDP will be concentrated in April-June. In the short term, it will definitely affect the import and export trade and tourism between Japan and Europe, America, China and other countries, and affect the process of global economic recovery. However, because the power sources of global economic recovery are emerging countries, Europe, the United States and other places, Japan's economy is still in the transitional stage from deflation to gradual recovery, and the whole northeast region of Japan accounts for about 8% of Japan's economy, making little contribution to global economic growth. Japan's economy grew by 3.9% in 20 10, the fastest growth rate in 20 years. Compared with the previous three months, the GDP in the last quarter actually shrank by 0.3%. Moreover, from past experience, large-scale post-disaster reconstruction can often offset the negative impact of natural disasters. For example, the Hanshin earthquake in 1995 had a serious impact on Japan's manufacturing and transportation industries. It is said that the loss reached 200 billion US dollars, accounting for 2.5% of Japan's GDP at that time. However, driven by strong reconstruction demand, Japan's economy recovered within six months. JPMorgan Chase, Citibank and other institutions predict that with the acceleration of reconstruction, the Japanese economy will rebound strongly in the rest of this year. 2。 The earthquake will have a far-reaching impact on the global and China financial markets, increasing uncertainty. In order to stabilize the financial market after the earthquake and meet the rising capital demand of financial institutions, the Bank of Japan decided to inject a total of 23 trillion yen of extra liquidity into the money market through the operation that day, reaching a record high. This large-scale capital injection will not only worsen Japan's current financial situation, but also affect the yen exchange rate in the long run, thus affecting the RMB exchange rate, one of its global substitutes, and the stability of the global financial market. Moreover, in order to meet the financing needs of earthquake relief and public construction projects in the affected areas, the government will have to invest a lot of money and bear greater financial pressure. However, from the reality, Japan is the worst developed country in the world in terms of the ratio of total debt to GDP, the ratio of fiscal deficit to GDP, and the degree of dependence on national debt. Its finance and debt are in jeopardy, and the government does not have enough financial resources to carry out scale reconstruction. In addition, a large number of enterprises in the earthquake-stricken areas stopped production and their fiscal revenue decreased. The world is in a fragile crisis recovery period, and the total demand is sluggish. It is difficult for American and European economies, which are also plagued by high debt and high unemployment, to come up with funds to support Japan. In this case, in the fiscal year of 20 1 1, the Japanese government is bound to rely more on the issuance of new bonds (rather than taxes) in terms of income, which will be the third consecutive year. Once the Japanese government issues a huge amount of national debt, Japan's financial situation will deteriorate, and Japan's credit rating may further decline. There are certain risks in the Japanese government bonds that China bought in large quantities before. At the same time, Japan may adjust its investment strategy in the future, such as selling a large number of US Treasury bonds in its hands and realizing the return of overseas capital to support its national debt and local post-disaster reconstruction. The change of Japanese overseas capital flow will lead to new turmoil in the bond markets of the United States and Europe, and the world may enter a period of high-risk debt turmoil. In the foreign exchange market, due to the expectation that Japan will continue to implement loose monetary policy, the expectation that the yen widely circulated around the world will return to Japan to help rebuild, and the high risk aversion of Japanese investors, the yen soared and the dollar fell sharply against the yen. 3。 The earthquake had a great impact on China's industry and foreign trade. The biggest negative impact of the earthquake in Japan on China's industry and foreign trade is in the field of import and export, because Japan is currently China's third largest trading partner with very close trade relations. For a long time, China has imported a large number of Japanese high-tech products, upstream intermediate products and equipment. There is a big trade deficit between the two sides in the export of agricultural and sideline products and consumer goods. Considering that Japan has always been a major producer and consumer of key components in the global electronic industry, occupying an important position in the fields of semiconductors, flat panel industry, television and digital electronics, and the industrial zone in the northeast of Japan, where the earthquake occurred, is also a major global supplier of high-quality steel and other metal materials, such as special glass, engines, miniature bearings, etc., if a large number of enterprises in its jurisdiction go bankrupt and stop production, it will inevitably impact China's imports of these products. As a result, the supply of some domestic products is insufficient and the prices are rising. The capacity utilization rate of some industries in China, such as electronics and automobiles, may be reduced due to the stop of the supply of intermediate products in the upstream of Japan, and some new construction and renovation projects may have to be slowed down due to the interruption of equipment production and delivery processes in Japan. For example, eight Japanese car companies, including Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Hino and Daihatsu, have announced the temporary closure of their factories in Japan, which will definitely affect the supply of Japanese auto parts and vehicle export business in the short term, resulting in a tight supply of Japanese auto resources in China. In particular, the earthquake may promote the relocation of Japanese manufacturing industries in Japan and around the world. Because Japan is a country with frequent earthquakes, earthquakes often bring fatal injuries or shocks to some industries. After this painful lesson, some manufacturers who originally stayed at home or were forced by the government not to move abroad will definitely adjust the global industrial layout and integration in the future, and will not rule out transferring some high-tech manufacturing industries to countries with lower costs and relatively few natural disasters. It can be said that this kind of industrial transfer is not forced by the market, but has to be done in the face of major natural disasters. Therefore, the technological content of this industrial transfer is much higher than that of the original industrial transfer.