19/02/2014 Asia Business Report

be delayed by six months. The "care database", as it's being called, was

due to begin operating in April. Time for Asia Business Report.

Auto rescue. China looks set to tie up with a struggling carmaker. Snow

in the supply chain. How the weather is effect on businesses across

Japan. Welcome to wage a business report. We start with the iconic

French car maker, Peugeot, which is about to be rescued by the Chinese.

In recent years, their cars have sold poorly, and the company has

made massive losses. It is being kept afloat by a massive injection

of money from the financing arm. Help looks to be on the way. A

Chinese carmaker is set to agree to a tie-up, which is part of a $4

billion moneymaking operation. What is in it for the Chinese company?

This deal is a potential risk, because we have seen in the past two

years, some other Chinese companies have tried to act as a bargain

hunter, to acquire the Swedish car maker, Saab. It conceded a lot of

money on that deal. I would say that they are trying to seek similar

opportunities at the moment, but we can see the risk is huge. We know

China's car market is the largest in the world. Why do you think Chinese

carmakers have struggled to sell abroad? Simply because of the brand

side they are not ready yet. And companies like this one operate more

slowly than other private companies. That is in terms of overseas

operation and brand development. If you compare their indigenous brand,

the gap is very huge on sales. In other news, China's national

development and reform commission, part of the country's regulatory

body, has confirmed that antimonopoly investigations are

going on. The agency is ending in on technology providers. According to

analysts, the Chinese government is trying to lower domestic costs, and

rule out faster four G networks this year. Earlier this month, a

complaint was filed against one of the companies for overpricing their

networks. According to industry watchers, the move has sent a strong

signal that the people's bank of China is serious about access

liquidity, to reduce the risk of informal lending. It has been

identified as a major risk to Chinese growth, due to the

possibility of major debts turning into default. Malaysia's main

airline system has reportedly huge loss. It has rounded off the year

with its fourth straight quarterly loss, and the outlook for this year

has been negative. Malaysian airlines said that stiff competition

makes it difficult for them to increase fares. Coca-Cola is having

tough times with sales at home. That was the main reason for a 10% drop

in earnings in the final quarter of last year. It came in at $1.7

billion. Sales in North America fell by 1%. The makers of Sprite and

Vitamin K tapwater also posted lost. Japan is coming out from its second

major snowstorm in a week. Shops are having to deal with empty shelves in

some parts of the country, and the prices of fresh vegetables have

increased radically. The snow has forced a number of car factory

closures, although many workers are now back. Japan is better placed

than most countries to deal with snow, but what is the overall

impact. ? . The supply chain in Japan is quite

finely grained. The trucks are smaller, the store locations are

typically smaller than they would be in a large area country like the US.

If there is a local disruption, that trickles down. On the other hand,

Japan is fairly robust, and resilient to disruptions, because it

is used to disruptions by whether. Typhoons in the summer, and snow in

winter. This year, I have lived here for 22 years, and every winter there

were some days of snow in the Tokyo area full of it is quite usual for

Japan. We have seen car industry is stalling some of their operations at

some factories around the country. Toyota is reportedly back online.

How the Japanese businesses generally handle these kinds of

disruptions? Some of the factories like Toyota and Nissan, had some

factories closed for one or two days, and then I think one or two

factory roofs were broken in by the snow. Today, there are some areas

which are without supplies, and supplies are brought in by

helicopter. This would be remote, will areas. Surely that is all

adding to the cost? Businesses are likely to lose money as a result of

the snow. Of course it adds to the cost, and reduces, shuts down the

factories for some time. But that is happening every year, more or less.

This year there is a little bit more snow in the Tokyo area than other

years. Don't forget, on the western side of the Alps, it is called snow

country, so Japan is used to snow in most areas. There is some

speculation that the carmakers we talked about will struggle to meet

orders, particularly before April, when we have a sales hike coming in.

We have a special situation this year with domestic demand, because

there is an artificial buildup of demand before the consumption tax

will rise from 5% to eight Z in the new financial year -- 8%. Carmakers

try to catch up with that, so there is some special pressure there. In

the future, people may be able to do medical checkups from home, using

smart phones or home appliances to help manage chronic diseases like

diabetes. Can even Asia, where the demand for healthcare is exploding,

and that thing you can possibly expensive method of treatment? We

spoke to one company tried to make a new kind of breakthrough.

It is never a pleasant experience visiting a hospital. There are long

lines in the waiting rooms, and mounds of healthcare and insurance

forms to be filled out. But, there is a growing need in Asia.

Health-care spending in the region passed more than $1 trillion last

year, and that is expected to list double in the last five years --

next five years. As a result, some companies are now looking to

technology to reduce the advent and improve treatment. The leading

technologies that influence what we do here is starting with mobile.

People now carry very powerful computers in their pockets, with a

lot of senses in them. He is also exploring the use of things like

Google class. Data storage has become so cheap that it has helped

the company store mounds of information, and use machines that

create 3-D models of hearts. How much will technology really change

things? I believe it will transform healthcare, because there is a big

need out there. The need to deal with people in rural areas, in China

or India, you have a scale issue that you have to deal with. With

true technology I believe we can leapfrog. For example, today in

Singapore already, through data we can analyse whether patient is ready

to go home. We can do that purely based on data. We are the have a

small set now. Imagine we have millions of patients, and suddenly

you seen much more. The more we see, the better we can apply at to the

treatment. What are some of the biggest obstacles to a meeting this

technology and utilising all these details? The business model has to

change in terms of, you know, we're not doing everything physically with

proximity, we are doing is rightly. Can we just a way of working that?

These things take a little longer than the speed of technology.

Asia's ability to adapt to new and possibly expensive healthcare

technologies remains be seen. But one thing is for sure. Given the

region has a rapidly ageing population, there is a rising demand

for a new way to handle that hospital visit.

That brings us to an end to this edition of Asia Business Report.

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