JAPAN POST-QUAKE ECONOMY

JAPAN AUTO OUTPUT, EXPORTS PLUNGE POST-QUAKE

AFP, May 31, 2011

TOKYO — Japan's auto production and exports suffered record drops of more than 60 percent each in April following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami disaster, an industry group said Tuesday.

Total domestic production of cars, trucks and buses plunged 60.1 percent year-on-year in April, as the massive calamity led to plant closures and cut supply chains, said the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association.

Japan's exports of vehicles dropped 67.8 percent from a year earlier, the industry group said. Both the output and export drops were the biggest on record, a spokeswoman for the association told AFP.

Vehicle production in the country fell to 292,001 units in April from 731,829 in the same month a year earlier, while exports came to 126,061 units, down from 391,540 in April 2010, the industry group said.

Many component manufacturers that are key to auto production are based in the worst-hit regions of Japan, their facilities damaged by the 9.0-magnitude seabed quake or swamped by the giant wave that followed.

The quake and tsunami also crippled power generation facilities, including a nuclear power plant at the centre of an ongoing atomic emergency.

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