To the people of China's south-western Sichuan province, the knowledge that Saturday's earthquake was less severe than the one they experienced five years ago is little consolation. This is particularly true in Ya'an, nearest the quake's epicenter, where much of the city and surrounding villages have been flattened and over 180 people have died. Rebuilding will take time, but most analysts expect that the impact on China's economy will be slight.

Ding Ningning, from the State Council's Development Research Center, told China Daily that the regional economy will be affected, "but the earthquake will not greatly hurt China's overall economy because Ya'an, a third-tier city, is neither a raw material production base nor manufacturing zone." The earthquake was devastating, but the region it affected was small when compared to the Chinese economy as a whole.

Sichuan is a fast-growing province with a population of around 87 million. According to official figures its GDP was $385 billion in 2012 -- equivalent to about 5 percent of China's economy. The GDP of Ya'an city is just 5.7 billion RMB, making a large national economic impact unlikely. Local economic growth after the much more severe 2008 earthquake, which claimed almost 80,000 lives, took just three months to bounce back.