Asia Briefing: Tianjin tries to return to normal after explosions

The emergency may have eased at the port of Tianjin in northeastern China, but economic activity there has yet to get back to normal days after the devastating explosions, which tore a large hole in the logistics centre of the city's Binhai new economic zone.

Tianjin is a major industrial centre and the world's 10th largest port and while it has managed to keep operating mostly, the damage to warehouse facilities has been heavy, and closed roads have made getting goods in and out harder.

Binhai’s economy could face downturn pressure on its trade and logistics industries in the third quarter, Tang Zhongbin, director of the planning office of the area’s development and reform commission, told the Xinhua news agency.

Binhai accounts for 55 per cent of Tianjin’s GDP, and it chalked up 15.5 per cent economic growth last year, mainly from its aviation, auto, IT, petroleum and chemical engineering sectors.

"The disruption is likely to spread along supply chains. Still, the economic damage at the national level will be both transitory and small," wrote Mark Williams and Chang Liu at Capital Economics.

“. . . If disruption at the port drags on, firms should be able to re-route their cargo to the similarly large nearby ports of Qingdao and Dalian,” they said.

The explosions have a lot of local workers worried about going outside, let alone back to work. The first rainfall to wash over Tianjin since the blasts in the Binhai district last week caused an unidentified white foam to appear on the streets, the Shanghaiist website reported. And there is the problem of shoals of dead fish off the coast. The impact of this explosion will endure.