D&B’s free tool identifies businesses in Japan’s disaster affected regions

This information will help organisations to assess their exposure to financial and business continuity risk resulting from the earthquake and tsunami, as well as the unfolding developments at the Fukushima Daiichi Power Station.

D&B has identified approximately 150,000 businesses in the Fukushima, Miyagi and Iwate prefectures.

Users are able to search by company name or D-U-N-S number to determine if an organisation is located in the affected region.  While the search tool will provide information on which companies are in the impact zone, it cannot provide on-demand detailed reports due to conditions in the region.

Josh Peirez, president of innovation & chief marketing officer at D&B, commented: "These events have far-reaching effects that impact companies with either direct or non-direct relationships with Japanese companies.  We’ve made our data available to the general public in order to help companies who are seeking to better understand how this will impact them in the short- and long-term."

Organisations interested in the extent of impact to a specific business can order an investigation from D&B.

Meanwhile, D&B has downgraded Japan’s Country Risk Rating due to the pre-meltdown situation at Fukushima No.1 plant and the power shortages affecting eastern Japan.

Assuming no major civil emergency is created by nuclear fears, even in a best-case scenario the major gap in baseload generating capacity in eastern Japan due to the offline status of several nuclear plants will lead to industrial shutdowns in areas remote from the immediate tsunami impact. These shutdowns could last for weeks, impeding the start of reconstruction until after the second quarter.

Power is being rationed and households placed over industry in the queue. Road, rail and water and electricity outages will complicate the task of increasing coal, natural gas and fuel oil deliveries from overseas; and several large importers will likely have to declare force majeure imminently. Some thermal power plants have also been shut down, and one-third of refinery capacity was offline in March.

The scale of the disruption to national supply chains and for Japan’s external trade will only become clear in coming weeks, but D&B believes that the challenges are considerably more serious than the 1995 Kobe earthquake which caused US$100 billion in economic losses.

Meanwhile, nuclear safety fears continue, with attempts to prevent partial core meltdowns and spiraling problems at Fukushima unresolved. In light of these factors, despite the bulk of Japan’s industry and population centres being outside of areas affected by the tsunami, Japan’s risk indicator remains on negative outlook.

Quelle: eyefortransport
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