AFP

BEIJING ELECTRONICS and auto makers in China are facing a severe shortage of components after Japan’s twin disasters disrupted production, but the full impact will not be felt for weeks, analysts say.

The earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan’s northeastern coast on March 11 shattered infrastructure, caused power outages and forced temporary factory shutdowns — meaning shipments of key parts to China also stopped.

“As many Chinese manufacturers have started drawing down inventories of components, more significant output loss... shall start showing in the next couple of weeks,” IHS Global Insight senior analyst Ren Xianfang said.

Japan is a key supplier of components and equipment used in the assembly of cars, laptops, iPods, refrigerators and flat-screen televisions, and the country accounts for about 14 percent of China’s imports, according to UBS.

“Given the importance of Japan in the supply chain of some electronics, chemicals and machinery products... we expect China’s related exports to the world might be affected as well,” UBS economists said in a research note.

The full impact of the supply problems will start to be seen in the coming weeks as electronics and auto makers use up the parts in stock and Japanese assembly lines remain idle or operate well below capacity, analysts say.

Some electronics companies have reported shortages due to the disasters, and prices of computer memory chips and semiconductors have risen sharply in the past month due to the supply crunch.

Personal computer maker Dell said last week it had experienced “relatively small” supply chain disruptions, while Chinese telecom equipment maker ZTE said last month it expected supply problems to last for three to six months.

Chinese computer giant Lenovo warned last month that supplies of its newly released tablet computer LePad could be restricted after Japan’s quake and tsunami disrupted production of memory chips.

But Lenovo president and chief operating officer Rory Read told Dow Jones Newswires that the company had closed holes in its supply chain.

Research firm IHS iSuppli said that Apple could also face shortages of components for its new iPad 2. “The impact is significant but hard to estimate,” Andy Xie, an independent economist in Shanghai, said.

“We know the auto sector is already being hit.” But Japanese car makers Honda, Toyota and Nissan said their assembly lines in China were operating normally — so far.

“For now there is no change in the whole (year) production target,” said Honda Motor (China) Investment Co.

spokesman Zhu Linjie.