Only 21 percent of companies have a recovery plan for a natural calamity.

It's not just households but also business that authorities want to be ready for the next Big One.

The government will ask an advisory panel to draft guidelines by this summer to rate how prepared private companies are for natural disasters such as earthquakes.

Sources said the new rating system will help minimize damage to economic activities in the event a big quake strikes the Tokyo metropolitan area or the Tokai, Tonankai or Nankai epicenter regions.

Experts hope the guidelines will help companies resume business operations as quickly as possible after a natural disaster.

A study group under the government's Central Disaster Management Council will establish a task force later this month to draft the rating-system guidelines by August, sources said.

The guidelines will likely include standards such as funding for disaster countermeasures, planning for post-disaster operations, or ``business-continuity planning,'' and the number of times a year emergency drills are conducted.

Other standards may include employee participation as community volunteers during times of natural disaster and donations to emergency relief efforts.

Companies would be rated on each of the items included in the new system.

Representatives of the business community will also be invited to offer their views on the system.

From a business standpoint, it is often difficult to budget funds to prepare for earthquakes for the simple reason that there is no way of knowing when such disasters will hit.

However, study group members point to the growing awareness among companies for appraisals based on their efforts to help the environment.

``If companies receive high appraisal from the market and society for being strongly prepared for natural disasters, it will become easier for them to implement disaster prevention measures,'' said one study group member.

One goal for the new system that is likely to be a challenge is getting companies to adopt business-continuity planning.

While 67 percent of U.S. companies have planned for maintaining their operations in times of natural disasters or terrorist attacks, only 21 percent have done so in Japan.

In the United States, attention was focused on companies that had implemented such planning and were able to resume operations a day after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Planning ahead for major disasters could also cut down on the expected economic losses.

Experts estimated about 10 trillion yen in direct economic damage to companies resulted from the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake.

Forecasts for damages, including indirect damage to companies, from an earthquake in the predicted Tokai, Tonankai or Nankai temblors range between 30 trillion yen to 60 trillion yen.

Estimates for damage from an earthquake with an epicenter directly under Tokyo are about 100 trillion yen.(IHT/Asahi: January 11,2005)