The current strength of the yen has been viewed as damaging to a fragile export-led economic recovery from Japan's worst recession since World War II.
Still, analysts caution that recovery is likely to remain fragile, as exports, a major growth engine for most Asian economies, will not recover rapidly until the United States and European economies improve.
That, however, would be tricky to defuse gradually, because any withdrawal of stimulus would risk hurting the still-fragile and export-dependent overall economy.
Exports have been one of the bright spots of the fragile recovery, but without Export-Import Bank financing, companies could struggle to complete contracts with overseas buyers.
The weaker pound will buoy exports, but fragile public finances suggest that Britain has much less scope to use government spending to cushion the private sector than America does as this week's flawed budget made painfully clear (see article).The outlook should in theory be brighter for Germany and Japan.
If, as still seems likely, the biggest among them slow but do not slump, then some sort of floor will be put under commodity prices and robust consumers in the emerging world will prop up exports from fragile debt-laden rich countries.But the emerging markets' resilience cannot be taken for granted.
Rice is one of this fragile economy's few exports, and demand for the food elsewhere is desperate.
The new push for foreign investment stems from India's struggle to expand its merchandise exports in a fragile global economy and control a large import bill.
At a time of economic and financial upheaval, with unemployment expected to climb rapidly through the rest of the year and as the most fragile of recoveries in the export-oriented German economy remains threatened by the vicissitudes of the unstable global economy, political commentators have been at a loss to explain why.
With a hefty clean-up bill looming, the earthquake has exposed cracks in Ecuador's already fragile economy, which relies on exports of oil, shrimp, gold, and bananas.
