Reuters Posted online: Tuesday, December 28, 2004 at 1355 hours IST
Singapore, December 28: The tsunami that has devastated parts of Asia and killed more than 28,400 has affected companies, economies and markets across the globe.
Here is a snapshot of some of the financial effects of the disaster (dates are when news reported, based on GMT time).
ECONOMIES
* Cost of devastation will be in billions of dollars, says head of United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Dec 28).
* Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra estimates cost of damage at 20 billion baht ($510 million) and says government will seek additional funds from parliament (Dec 28) .
* IDEAglobal says disaster should subtract 0.5 percent from Thailand's 2005 GDP and put pressure on Q1 balance of payments. Also says it will cut Indonesia's 2005 GDP by 0.2 percent and put pressure on country's budget (Dec 28).
* Tsunami destroyed transport links in Sri Lanka from Colombo to tourist locations in south. Credit Suisse economist Arjuna Mahendran, former head of Sri Lanka investment board, says disaster would set back country's economy by a year and could cause contraction (Dec 27).
* Economists say tourism in Thailand, which accounts for 6 percent of GDP, will not suffer lasting damage. Impact expected to be smaller than from SARS or this year's political violence in south of country (Dec 27).
* Indian finance minister says does not see major fiscal impact from disaster. Expenditure secretary later says no plans for a tsunami-related tax or additional borrowing due to cost of relief work (Dec 27).
* Indian rating agency ICRA expects state tsunami-related spending of 20 billion rupees ($456 million). "There will be some spending in rebuilding infrastructure and providing relief to those affected, but I don't think it will be large enough to have an impact on the fiscal side," advisor Saumitra Chaudhuri says (Dec 28).
* India's Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry says economic activity will not be hurt, except for shipping and tourism in Kerala as well as Andaman and Nicobar (Dec 28).
* Indonesia says will try to keep budget deficit under control despite disaster. Senior finance ministry official provides no further details on impact other than to say financing will be manageable (Dec 27).
BUSINESS
* OCBC economist Suan Teck Kin says it could take Southeast Asian resorts up to 6 months to repair damage at a time when budget airlines had only recently launched services (Dec 28).
* Insurance Australia Group Ltd., Australasia's biggest general insurer, says its Australian and New Zealand businesses offered travel insurance but this was a small line of business. Spokesperson says it is highly unlikely there will be significant impact on IAG from a business perspective (Dec 28).
* Japanese non-life insurers Millea Holdings Inc. , Aioi Insurance Co. Ltd. and Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Co. Ltd. say they have not heard damages from clients yet. Sompo Japan Insurance Inc. says too early to assess impact. (Dec 28).
* Hannover Re says tsunami-related damage claims expected to be in low-double-digit millions of euros, well below claims of about 300 million euros ($400 million) from four big hurricanes that hit United States (Dec 27).
* Munich Re and Zurich Financial say they could not yet assess cost of disaster (Dec 27).
* Swiss Re official says company hopes claims will be less than those from recent hurricanes, cost of which was put at $640 million (Dec 27).
* Club Mediterranee says any losses will be covered by insurance. Company has two resorts -- in Maldives and Phuket -- that were flooded (Dec 27).
* Hotel group Accord says clients at two hotels in Phuket were safe but it had not heard from a third hotel on the island (Dec 27).
* TUI AG, Europe's largest tourism firm, says expects no significant impact on earnings from tsunami (Dec 27).
* Most US insurers have little exposure to Asia and those that do lay off risk to reinsurers, officials and industry watchers say (Dec 27).
COMMODITIES/ENERGY
* Indian port of Madras reopens on Tuesday after closing on Sunday. Madras is expected to handle about 190,000 bpd of crude and oil products this year (Dec 28).
* OPEC member Indonesia's one million barrel per day (bpd) oil production and exports unaffected (Dec 26).
* Liquefied natural gas (LNG) processing at the Arun facility, in Aceh province near the tsunami wave, briefly disrupted on Sunday but infrastructure undamaged. Indonesia is largest LNG exporter in the world (Dec 27).
* Some rubber shipments from Sumatra delayed due to damaged infrastructure (Dec 27).
* Soymeal shipments from India during peak November-March season unaffected (Dec 27).
* Thailand, world's biggest rice exporter, reports no disruption to shipments of the grain. Most shipments are from the country's northeast, an area not affected by the tsunami (Dec 27).
MARKETS
* Shares in Thailand's Royal Garden Resorts and Laguna Resorts and Hotels fall 1 percent on Tuesday on news of damage to their resorts. Siam Cement and Siam City Cement rise 0.8 percent and 1.7 percent respectively on expectations of reconstruction spending (Dec 28).
* Airlines impact seen limited. "Something like SriLankan Air might be heavily affected, while airlines like SIA (Singapore Airlines) , Cathay , Thai Airways, MAS (Malaysian Airlines System), AirAsia will be affected less," says DBS Vickers Securities analyst Chris Sanda in Singapore (Dec 28).
* Thai baht and Indonesian rupiah steady on Tuesday after each lost about 0.25 percent on Monday due to tsunami impact. Indian and Sri Lankan rupees finished Monday little changed. (Dec 28).
* Fund manager Mark Mobius says investment in emerging markets funds in affected region will not be hurt. Says economic impact in India mostly isolated (Dec 28).
* European insurance and tourism firms listed above suffer declines, mostly between 0.5 and 1.8 percent on Monday (Dec 27).
* Swedish travel firm Ticket Travel Group shares fall 6 percent on Monday. Firm's main holiday destination is Phuket, Thailand.
