The human toll is huge but what of the economic fallout from the Sichuan earthquake on May 12?

Reverberations appear to be spreading. On Friday, Sony shunted responsibility for falling camera sales in China last month on to the earthquake. But, until now, the economic and financial fallout appeared to be mild. Sichuan may be a huge province – it is bigger, in fact, than California – but it contributes just a couple of percentage points of China’s industrial production. The short-term impact of the earthquake on demand should be offset by reconstruction spending. Inflation is a bigger concern. Sichuan raises more than 10 per cent of the country’s swine and produces 7 per cent of its rice. Food price inflation in China, however, is starting to ease; besides, most of Sichuan’s pigs are raised far from the earthquake.