07/02/2014 Asia Business Report

sandbags and assist in evacuating residents from their homes. More

than one inch of rain overnight is predicted. Time for Asia Business

Report. As the US gets set to release its

latest job numbers today, we find out what that data means for Asia.

How one Japanese carmaker is making the most of India's growing car

market. Welcome to the programme. We begin

with the world's largest economy, where there is better economic news.

Workers retained their jobs, with jobless claims essentially dropping

by 20,000. However, we have other figures out later today, which will

give us an indication of America's latest monthly job numbers. It will

be a busy day for politicians in Washington, who will also be talking

about raising the debt ceiling to avoid any risk of default. Thank you

for joining us. How important is the economic recovery to us in Asia?

Over the last few weeks, the data out of the US has not been as

strong. There are questions about whether the US economy, the biggest

in the world, is starting to stall at a time when the Japanese yen is

beginning to become more volatile. It's important we get decent numbers

otherwise there will be more questions. You mentioned emerging

markets. We saw huge stock sell-off earlier this week. You remain

optimistic about the chances, particularly in Asia? I would say

there is too much media hyperbole at the moment about emerging markets

and it could escalate into a full-blown crisis. Currencies in

Asia have been adjusting since April last year and it's starting to turn

around their trade positions in Thailand, India and Indonesia. The

second thing is Asia's fundamentals are not as bad as they were during

the Asian crisis. Most have more flexible currencies and huge

financial reserves. Also, this is something of a blessing in disguise.

Investors focusing on risk puts pressure on policymakers in Asia to

get their houses in order and we are beginning to see that in Asia. Moves

towards fiscal consolidation and interest rate increases.

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp has posted better-than-expected

profits, despite advertising revenues continuing to fall at the

company's newspaper divisions. Falling sales at the media

company's Australian newspapers saw revenue drop by 4% to just over $2.2

billion. The shares of linked in, the social networking website for

professionals, fell by as much as 10% after its first quarter and

full-year forecast fell short of expectations. The company forecast a

revenue of $2 billion. In India, despite a recent drop in car sales,

Japanese carmakers have been investing steadily in recent years.

Companies like Nissan, Toyota and Suzuki are all contenders in the

market. But Honda is now in third place in the league table, up from

eighth place ten years ago. We spoke with the president and chief

executive of Honda in India. We are very lucky. We believe the market is

still growing. However, customers are waiting for attractive orders.

We will support to be supplied to customers for the best product as

well as the best service. The Indian market is highly skewed towards

diesel engines. How has that switch worked for you? We have come up with

a diesel engine for the first time and there has been a tremendous

response from customers. That is driving consumption. You are

competing with well-established giants, and they have dealerships

across the country, saying that growth is coming from rural India.

But your dealerships are in urban India. How can you compete? We will

have more dealerships in rural India. We will increase those

tremendously. Will be focused domain on small cars or our customers ready

for the bigger models? 50% of our sales come from smaller models, but

we are certain that there will be more emphasis on the larger models

in the future. In any case, we expect a continuation of fast growth

in the Indian market. You use India for production and export to South

Africa and other markets. How is that working? We started that two

years ago. The expectation is good but we do not plan to expand the

export number sharply because our focus is on India. Shares of

Japan's Sony are climbing in trade today after the company said it was

selling off its PC division to concentrate on smartphones and

tablets. It will also cut 5000 jobs and split its television making arm

into a separate company. The restructure comes as the struggling

company warned it would lose more than $1 billion this financial year,

despite its earlier forecast of a $3 million profits. In the long-term,

it's important for them to continue with their exit strategy. The only

real comparison is with companies like Panasonic. That is building a

spectacular foundation based on exit strategy. Sony would find salvation

if they started exiting Consumer Electronics Show. -- consumer

electronics. Unless they exit in the long-term, it's going to be very

difficult for them. This is still a huge loss. Getting rid of the PC as

well as the television business. This does not leave Sony was all

that much left. Yes, but if you look at Apple, it does not have many

products. It's all about focusing on a few products and that has worked

very well. In the case of Sony, they are not focused. They are doing too

many things. Content and content delivery. Not just television alone.

There are many different ways to provide services. Focusing on that,

they can do well. As the economic recovery continues to be sluggish in

many parts of the world, it's being asked whether increasing the number

of women in the workplace is the answer. One woman at the top is

Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International

Monetary Fund. She told us about her brush with gender discrimination and

the secret to her success. I have succeeded and I'm here where I am

because I was not aggressive, because I relied on teamwork and

because I acknowledged the team and the support that they have given me.

And because we worked together. I'm not ashamed of saying that. Other

types of management and leadership 's are fine but if women can

exercise leadership, exercise leadership by being inclusive, team

minded, paying back to the team, if we can contaminate a few male

leaders on that who don't succeed in reaching peace settlements, that's

fine. I'm prepared to fight for that. The worst discrimination I

have faced? My first interview with a major law firm in Paris. I had

qualified on all fronts and the managing partner said to me, we are

giving you a job but don't expect to make partner. I asked why that was.

He looked at me with contempt. He said, because you are a woman. That

was about 35 years ago. Things have not changed enormously in many

areas. Now, the law firm I have lived my life with was not that

awful. You can catch the rest of that discussion on a special report

later today. Looking at the markets again, they are all going up this

Friday. The Nikkei is up well over 200 points. It's all about strong

gains on Wall Street. Thank you for joining us for this edition of Asia

Business Report. A senior American diplomat has

apologised for a leaked recording that shows her insulting the EU.

Washington blames Russia for the