IN TIMES of disaster, big numbers are bandied about quite liberally.

Initial estimates of the death toll following the Indonesian tsunami were in the hundreds. A few days later, the figure rose to a few thousand, then tens of thousands, before eventually tallying six figures.

And so it has been with last week’s triple whammy of disasters in Japan. As more bodies have been washed ashore, the official death count rises sharply.

The same will also be true of the economic cost of the combined earthquake and tsunami induced disruption. Japan’s big industrial concerns must also cope with the business disruption caused by power shortages arising from the damage done to the country’s nuclear power stations.

It surely doesn’t require a huge dose of hindsight to understand that the construction of nuclear reactors in a place as prone to geological instability was always going to be a bad idea. The nuclear crisis has scared some countries, notably Switzerland and Germany, to defer decisions to restart nuclear power programmes. They want to await the lessons of Japan’s disaster before proceeding.

The North West of England is a world leading centre of nuclear industry expertise. Numerous firms offer a range of nuclear related services. Japan’s disaster could yet go either way for them.

It could be beneficial, allowing them to win contracts worth billions to rebuild Japan’s power generation capacity. Or they will lose out as more and more countries get cold feet about nuclear power.

But, as long as renewable sources of energy remain insufficient to provide all the power the world needs, the chances are we will stick with nuclear. We must decide which Japanese name carries the most worrying resonance; Fukushima or Kyoto.

AS THE story on the front of this edition of LDP Business demonstrates, we like to keep an eye on events in the shipping trade.

That’s because something like one-sixth of Merseyside’s economic output is accounted for by maritime related activities. Also port trade is a good adhoc barometer that can be used to gauge the progress of the wider economy. After all, if firms are importing more raw materials and exporting more manufactured products, then the economy has got to be picking up.

So it is good to hear that the Port of Liverpool, in line with all other major UK ports, enjoyed its best quarter of trade for five years at the end of 2010.

This data is all the more interesting because it covers the same quarter as Britain recorded a fall in GDP figures.

Perhaps rising shipping trade indicates that the adverse GDP figures are a blip.

One disturbing aspect of the port figures is the longer-term decline in trade passing through our ports. Trade peaked for shipping in 2005, despite the fact there was still plenty of economic growth around for several years after that date.

You would expect port trade through Liverpool and elsewhere to rise for three more years before the recession caused it to fall off.

I WOULDN’T hold any great hopes for next week’s Budget speech.

All the damage has already been done by both the recession and the Coalition government. While some experts think that the public sector financial deficit may turn out to be a little lower than forecast, the fact is the Chancellor won’t have much room to manoeuvre.