“Some of Asia’s most important growth economies have the highest financial risk from the threat if natural hazards, due to the high exposure of their cities and trading hubs to events such as flooding, earthquakes and tropical cyclones, according to the latest Natural Hazards Risk Atlas recently published by Maplecroft, a company, based in the United Kingdom.

On the company’s website, Helen Hodge, Maplecroft’s Head of Maps and Indices said: “High exposures to natural hazards in these countries [Bangladesh, the Philippines, Myanmar, India and Vietnam] are compounded by lack of resilience to combat the effects of a disaster should on emerge. Given the exposure of key financial and manufacturing centers, the impact of a major event would be very likely to have significant impacts on the total economic output of these countries, as well as foreign business.”

The company’s findings also noted that, “Strong resilience in big economies reduces economic recovery risks.” Citing Japan as an example, Maplecroft concludes: “Huge economies such as Japan have the capacity to recover relatively quickly from natural disasters due to entrenched resilience factors including: economic strength, strong governance, established infrastructures, disaster preparedness and tight building regulations – factors that are, according to Maplecroft, largely ineffective in many of the emerging growth economies.”