The Impact Of Japan'S Earthquake On China'S Industry: The Biggest Impact On Imports

As one of the world's leading industrial and export giants,

Our country imports a lot of Japanese high-tech products, upstream intermediate products and equipment.

This is why China has a huge surplus in trade with the United States and Europe and a huge deficit in Japanese trade.

In 2010, China exported $121 billion 60 million to Japan and imports $176 billion 710 million, with a deficit of US $55 billion 650 million.

Because of this, the capacity utilization of some industries such as electronics and automobiles may be reduced due to the suspension of intermediate products in the upper reaches of Japan. Some new and reconstruction projects may have to slow down because of the interruption of the production and delivery process of Japanese equipment.

Overall, in 2010, the total imports from Japan amounted to 176 billion 706 million 930 thousand US dollars. The main import items were as follows:

The chemical industry and its related industrial products account for 14 billion 829 million 10 thousand US dollars, accounting for 8.4%.

Plastic and its products, rubber and its products, 12 billion 389 million 40 thousand US dollars, account for 7%;

Base metal and its products, 19 billion 641 million 520 thousand US dollars, accounted for 11.1%, of which 10 billion 124 million 400 thousand were steel, 2 billion 626 million 980 thousand were iron and steel products, and 3 billion 923 million 260 thousand were copper and its products.

Mechanical and electrical, audio-visual equipment and parts, accessories, 84 billion 812 million 740 thousand US dollars, accounting for 48%;

Vehicles, aircraft, ships and pport equipment accounted for 16 billion 711 million 700 thousand, accounting for 9.5%, of which 15 billion 459 million 120 thousand of vehicles and their annexes (excluding railway vehicles) accounted for 9%.

Optical, medical and other instruments, watches and musical instruments, 14 billion 701 million 360 thousand US dollars, accounting for 8.3%.

From the above data, we can see that the most influential enterprises that import Japanese equipment, machinery, optics and other accessories, because these enterprises import from Japan or have little source of substitution, or themselves are part of the industrial chain of "core components of Japan - China's finished products - global market sales", and there is no way to find alternative sources of supply for a time.

In addition to the possible impact, the Japanese earthquake also means a great demand for reconstruction.

As the world's largest building material and steel producer, as the world's largest construction market and the top exporter of construction engineering services, China's related industries are expected to gain a certain share.

For Chinese manufacturers and exporters operating products that are highly competitive with Japan, the Japanese production and export system pause by the earthquake, which means that the market needs them to fill the gap.

The impact of the Japanese earthquake is mainly due to the urgent supply of equipment and core components needed for processing, and the problem faced by manufacturers will be particularly prominent.

This is expected to create opportunities for emerging domestic equipment and core component suppliers.

But if domestic suppliers are not able to keep up with them, and the upstream core parts belong to oligopoly industries, then turning to third country / regional suppliers may strengthen the monopoly power of suppliers in these areas.

If China's liquid crystal panels rely heavily on imports, SHARP's shutting down means that Taiwan and South Korea's manufacturers will strengthen their monopoly power.

To avoid such adverse consequences, if mainland related industries can not fill the import gap for a while, after Japan's earthquake shocks and the Japanese industry gradually return to normal, we need to consciously restore orders from Japanese manufacturers and foster their recovery, so as to counterbalance the expansion of third country / regional suppliers.

And after the destructive earthquake and the loss of customers and market share, many Japanese technology and capital intensive enterprises who are unwilling to pfer to China will consider pferring at least some of their overseas production capacity. China should strengthen investment in this regard.