08/01/2014 Asia Business Report

with his wife and son - beat Craig Kinsella, and forced him to work for

them. Now on BBC News, all the latest business news live from

Singapore. China's crucial oil supplies come in

to question amid ongoing rental fighting in South Sudan. The loss

Vegas Consumer Electronics Show. Thank you for joining cars. We start

off with technology and from televisions that bend and smart sock

is that attract starter from your daily job, some of the gadgets on

display at an international from an exhibition in lossmakers. It is

called the consumer Electronics show. This is where many of Asia's

Echus Telectronics names have been gathering. Our correspondent is fair

and spoke with the Sony president to get an update on the Alec Tronic

giant's latest developments. A tabletop screen showing live

television, my calendar, my notes all in the kitchen table. It is a

concept at the moment, but in lossmakers, Sony has been unveiling

a range of new product is. I've been talking to the boss about we be

technology is going. You have launched something that is quite

interesting? I am wearing of the wristband version. Inside the

wristband, is what we call the core. It fits into the wristband. This

logs all of your activities, whether walking, in the car, on the bicycle,

all the fiscal activities you do. It allows you to log photos you have

taken, musically listened to. It takes your entire day. The big

battle recently has been the game consoles, the Sony P F or has been

seen as a great gaming box but the Xbox is leaving for home

entertainment? We were able to sell 4.2 million units which is a very

high number. Are you ready to call victory in the battle against Xbox?

I have always said the console business as a five to ten year

opposition. How important is streaming video into the home going

to be? Are you a big player? At Sony, we are one of the top five

providers of screened video content into homes in the United States. The

PS3 is the number one device for net flicks viewers over televisions, and

PCs, we have a big presence here in to US market and elsewhere as well.

You had disappointment a few months back with the unexpected profit

warning, that must have been a big disappointment? If you look at it

from a quarterly perspective, it was a disappointment, again, one quarter

does not make the entire business. Every quarter matters, it is making

sure we have the best product, that we do at the most efficient way,

there are some things we can not control like the exchange rates. We

need to make sure that business is robust enough to absorb fluctuations

in exchange rates. We have to take some hard decisions eventually? If

you talk about restructuring, we have undertaken that already many

times. Some businesses are growing, those areas will have more

employees. Other businesses where are we a shindig we may have to do

restriction. It is not something we suddenly decide to do one day. That

is in on going process. That was the president of Sony. More on the cool

gadgetry from the consumer Alec Tronics show log on to the BBC

website. Other business news, US officials announced that JP Morgan

Chase would pay $1.7 billion for its role in the massive fraud carried

out by Bernie Madoff. The country 's biggest bank agreed to the

settlement because it failed to warn federal authorities about his

schemes. JP Morgan Chase served as his bank for two decades before he

was arrested in 2008. The International monetary fund is to

raise its forecast for global growth. The managing director said

the revision would come in the next three weeks but did not elaborate.

In October it lowered its growth forecast saying the global economy

remains in low gear. It reduced its forecast for 2014 to 3.6%. The chief

executive of Ford has said he will not the leaving be car giant to join

Microsoft. There had been reports he was one of the candidates

shortlisted to replace the Microsoft outgoing executive. He is credited

with providing Ford and Ted -- said he would not leave the car maker

before the end of this year. China has called for an immediate

ceasefire in South Sudan which seen three weeks of brutal fighting. It

is a very rare move from China which usually refuses to get involved in

the affairs of other countries. Time receives almost 10% of its oil

supplies from South Sudan. -- China. China wants to protect its

investments. You are mentioning, serious conflict in South Sudan.

That has meant the oil supplies had been cut by a third. The Chinese are

the biggest and best buzz in oilfields in South Sudan. Because of

the fighting they have had to evacuate workers. There are piece

talks going on in Ethiopian, but the situation could get worse. We are

seeing an example of how China in its search for resources is becoming

embroiled in disputes and wars overseas. That is something that

professes it does not want to do. But it cannot simply stand in the

sidelines but wants to protect its resources. And it has a lot of

investments especially for Africa, that is why you have the Foreign

Minister making a two of gun and Senegal? He is going to garner and

Senegal, it underscores how important Africa is to China. China

is the continent's biggest trade partner. Its interest is in the

growing markets in China to sell goods. China gets a third of its oil

from the continent. As we have seen Tom South Sudan, that often means

working in countries facing instability. The simple phone has

come a long way since it was first invented in the 1800s. Instead of

just being used for calls, they are now sources of information, social

networking and doing business. We spoke with an expert on the rise of

mobile comments in the region. Asia is the fastest growing of all our

comments regions. It is driven by the smart phone. The adoption across

the region. It is led by China and India and some of the big population

countries. It is the arrival of the smart phone that is driving a lot of

the mobile commerce we are seeing. You talk about countries such as

China and India, the fact remains that in countries like these, smart

phones are very Spence of unlike the Western economies. The phone service

providers do not subsidise them cook that hurt future growth? Yes, for

certain markets. It talks about what market segment to talk about.

Research showed that the urban individuals in India. Individuals

over 18 who have a bank account, who have a mobile phone. You get very

high smart phone penetration in that segment. It is about 90%. These are

the people that will be driving a lot of the transactions. If you talk

about India in general, smart phone penetration is 20%. In the

short-term, it is not about all of India adopting smart phones, it is

about the people who drive transactions which becomes your

growing middle class. What about security concerns, you store a lot

of your sensitive financial information on your mobile phone and

use that to make payments to another mobile phone or another Alec Tronic

device. How safe is that? -- electronic device. The security is

not quite as vulnerable as one might think. There has been some very good

technological advancements. If you look at mobile banking, for mobile

banking, two weight checks, for loading up your phone is into a

mobile wallet, there is something called trusted service management.

These are all good technologies. Is all about influencing and really

getting the consumer to believe it is not as risky as he or she may

think. A quick look at the markets, Asian stocks are currently moving

higher in midmorning Wednesday trade. Earlier it was mixed, now

Japan, Hong Kong and South Korea and Australia in positive territory 's

after US equities rallied overnight after a slump around the museum. --

the new year. The top stories this hour: Four US Air Force crew members

were killed when their Pave-Hawk helicopter crashed during a training

mission on the east coast of England Records tumble in the United States

as the Arctic blast continues - all 50 states suffer freezing

temperatures