The March 11 disaster has left Japan's economy in chaos.
According to the Japanese governement, the total number of fatal victims or who are still missing sums up to 19-thousand and the estimated damage reaches up to roughly 213 billion US dollars.
The government has already spent over 170 billion dollars and plans to spend around 80 billion dollars more until 2015, but the effects seem limited.
Samsung Economic Research Institute says that the pace of recovery was slow in the country as it was swamped by a strong yen, high inflation rate, the european debt crisis, Thai floods, slowdown in U.S economy, and the earthquake and tsunami that hit the country's northeastern region last March.
In such circumstances one of the most hardly hit industries were automobiles and IT, as their manufacturing operations had to stop due to the disaster.
Stock prices of Panasonic and Toshiba dropped by over 30 percent after the earthquake and subsequent tsunami, while that of Honda and Toyota, dropped by around 10 percent.
Experts say however, that it's the fishing industry that had to suffer the most from the disaster.


[Interview : Lim Chai-sung, Assistant Prof.
Institute for Japanese Studies, Seoul National Univ.] "As famous fishing villages in Japan like Kesennuma in Miyagi Prefecture were destroyed, the overall fish industry took in a big hit due to the disaster. The high levels of radioactive contamination in the region also gives a negative outlook for the industry."

Experts added that the prospects for the construction industry is bright on the other hand, with local governments in the northeastern region trying to rebuild the infrastructure of the villages, which has turned into ghost towns.
Hwang Ji-hye, Arirang News.

Reporter : emilyfwang@arirang.co.kr