China: The Earthquake impact.

Here's how the recent earthquakes will probably impact China.

Due to the earthquake, China has lost huge amount of human capital, fertile land, natural resources, etc. It will impact the agricultural production drastically. The production would be less and the ability to deliver products in the market will reduce. This will result in demand supply mismatch. The increased demand would put pressure on the existing prices.

The affected area will require rebuilding and redevelopment. For this huge capital and resources would be required. Demand for resources like Oil, petrol, energy which are already scarce will push the crude oil imports. With crude oil touching life time highs, this can further add woes for the government.

Also the material and different services required for the redevelopment of affected areas will have a negative impact on the prices.

And while all this happening, maintaing high growth would be difficult. Add to it difficult global markets scenario.

Controlling measure for the government could be to restrict price rise or artificially freeze prices of commodities, in order keep a check on inflation. But, this can not be the ultimate long term solution. The earthquake has caused a real increase in demand and a real decrease in supply. How can price freezes possibly eliminate the disequilibrium? It explores both the difficulty of keeping prices at current levels – shortages and an increasing fiscal subsidy – and the difficulty of letting prices rise – the inflationary impact.