China quake fans inflation worry in hard-hit areas

In China, this means a government that has pledged to run a prudent fiscal policy will probably loosen up a little.

"There's going to be a significant investment in infrastructure rebuild as a result," said Glenn Maguire, an economist at Societe Generale.

"In terms of 2009, 2010, some of the rebalancing we've seen in growth away from investment towards consumption is likely to reverse," he said.

(Reporting by Lucy Hornby, Simon Rabinovitch, Chen Aizhu and Polly Yam; Editing by Alan Raybould)