Disaster could cost Japan $235 billion: World Bank

Japan's massive earthquake and tsunami could cost its economy up to $235 billion, or 4.0 percent of output, and reconstruction may take five years, the World Bank said Monday. "If history is any guide, real GDP growth will be negatively affected through mid-2011," the World Bank said in its latest East Asia and Pacific Economic Update report.
But growth should pick up in subsequent quarters "as reconstruction efforts, which could last five years, accelerate", it added. The lower end of the World Bank's estimate of the twin disasters' impact was $122 billion, equivalent to 2.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). Since the natural disasters struck on March 11, Japan has also had to grapple with a nuclear power plant crisis in Fukushima, but the World Bank did not mention the atomic issue in its assessment of the economic damage.