09/01/2014 Asia Business Report

removed from the wreckage in the morning. Rescuers saved will be

sometime before they establish what the crash.

-- what caused the crash. As inflation eases, Chinese

authorities continue to find ways to balance the slowing economy. And,

the art of making noodles by hand. We find out why it is a vanishing

profession. We kick off with China, with the

world's second biggest economy saying inflation eased in the month

of December, following the months before. Official data shows prices

climbing 2.5% in December from a year earlier. That is below

forecast, and still within the government's comfort zone. They are

looking to rebalance the economy due to slowing growth. Authorities have

been announcing some key initiatives.

Among the announcements this week, was that China could have up to five

private banks opened within the next 12 months. They will, of course, be

tightly supervised by the authorities. It is being seen as a

move to open up the country's tightly controlled financial sector.

Along the theme of liberalisation, there has always been a couple of

announcements -- also been a couple of announcements in regard to

Shanghai's free trade zone. The communications and internet could

well be owned by foreign companies, that there is a catch. These

companies will have two basal their infrastructure in the Shanghai

free-trade zone. In terms of computer users, especially those who

use games, this week has been big. China has announced it will reverse

its ban on game consoles, which has been in force for 14 years. That

means gamers could get their hands on Xbox or PlayStation. Companies

wanting to sell these devices in China will have to make them in the

free-trade zone. Liberalisation within the Chinese economy is

absolutely critical to future economic growth. What happens in the

Shanghai free-trade zone is being very carefully watched by analysts,

because it could happen across the country.

Now to the fast moving business of technology. Companies have exhibited

their wares at a big technology show in Las Vegas. We sat down with the

head of Netflix, it video streaming company whose focus is on changing

the way we watch television. Netflix, the movie and TV streaming

service, has made quite a splash this year. It has announced that its

new series of House Of Cards will be shown in ultrahigh definition.

Whereat the very beginning of internet technology. The bringing

together rock internet and video so people can choose what to watch and

when they want to it. We have had 50 or 100 years of linear TV channels

and networks, and what is changing is that they will become

applications. On your Android phone, on your iPad on your Sony TV, on

your XBox One, all these applications that allow you as a

consumer to watch the videos you want to watch on your own schedule.

How important has it been for you to start making your own content,

rather than having to rely on buying things in from TV companies? We

realised that with each country there is a unique set of licensing

issues, and we weren't getting everything with the same release

date, and certain countries were having to wait behind other

countries, and it makes no sense. The only way we can fix it is to do

our own shows. When we do our own shows, then they are available

around the world at the exact same time. Does the rest of the

industry, the established TV industry in Hollywood, see you as a

threat? No, they normally say, we want you to pay $10 million for the

show, and I say, I can only pay 1 million, and they come back and say

well, come back when you can pay $10 million. That is pretty much the

dialogue. The other distributors have some fear, but they have mostly

realised that Netflix is an additional service. For example, in

the US, there are only 30 million subscribers, and yet cable and

satellite subscribers has a constant at 100 million, and not gone down.

You made a big deal about ultrahigh definition. Ultimately, ultrahigh

definition content will be the first content that is internet only.

Broadcast, cable, satellite, they won't have altar HD at least in the

next five years -- Ultra. So far, you have concentrated on growth

rather than profit. A year following the Hammers -- Amazon route? We will

be focusing on doing what we do in the years ahead.

In other business news making headlines, the big French food

conglomerate, Danone, is set to sue the French company Fonterra. The

French company said the recall had cost serious damage to its business.

-- the New Zealand company, Fonterra.

Qantas has been downgraded by Moody's to below investment level,

or junk. A large Chinese website, Taobao, owned by Alibaba Group, has

been another website to ban the virtual currency, bitcoin.

Across BBC World News and BBC .com this week, we are looking at

vanishing professions. This week we are in Taiwan to discover the art of

making noodles by hand. In Chinese culture noodles are eaten for

breakfast, lunch and dinner. They are also significant for special

occasions, because they symbolise something that is long-lasting. Now,

there are only a handful of masters making them the traditional way.

This family in central Taiwan is one of only two in their village making

noodles by hand. We used to be ten families here that made noodles the

traditional way. It is a trend repeating itself throughout Taiwan.

This man is a third-generation noodle maker. It are watching his

grandparents and parents make noodles by hand. His long working

day begins at the break of dawn, by mixing flour, salt and water. It

might seem hard to imagine, but this big blob of dough is eventually

turned into noodles that are only 1/10 of a centimetre thin. This

machine only gets the go so thin. The refined work will have to be

continued by hand. He leaves the noodles to lengthen on this bamboo

racks, then they are ready to be pulled. They will need to be about

four metres long. He makes fast work of it, but it is not as easy as it

looks. This way of making noodles is centuries old, and is believed to

have been brought over from China, where the ancestors of most

Taiwanese people come from. It was passed down from one generation to

another, but this man be be one of the last ones. TRANSLATION: The

money we earn is earned in a hard way. If it looks like it is going to

rain, we have to take the noodles inside all all-out efforts for

nothing. These noodles are made from flour, salt and water. They look

very simple, but there are hours of hard work behind them. This family

began working at 5am this morning, and would finish until 10pm, and all

they will make is about $100. Mr Lin says he cannot imagine a world

without handmade noodles. TRANSLATION: Handmade noodles taste

better, they are smoother. But I don't want my children to do this

kind of work. If they want to, I won't object. After all that hard

work, the family sits down for a lunch of Worcester and noodles. --

oysters. These are some of the best noodle dishes I have ever tasted,

but there is no say in whether this will survive the test of time.

Thank you for investing your time with us.

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