28/10/2015 Asia Business Report

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

IPhones, my pads and high profits, Apple releases upbeat projections

for the year. And, one man who turned a passion for reusing and

recycling into a business. -- iPads. The world's largest tech giant,

Apple, is claiming its greatest successful year ever. It is up more

than 20% from last year. The company made a profit of over $11 $11

billion. It is all too sales of iPhones, 48 million of them being

sold in the last three months. Despite slowing growth in China,

sales have almost doubled to $12.5 billion. That is a quarter of

Apple's total revenue. If you take Tim Cook at his word, he is

certainly very up beat. He was in China last week, saying the company

continues to expand in that part of the world with plans to open 40

stores in the country next year. Again, iPhone sales continue to grow

despite a slowdown in consumer spending that people are worried

about. The other thing is that Apple is continuing to diversify, so you

and I are talking primarily about the iPhone, but Apple has tried to

get into other products. Not just hardware, but also on the software

side. If you think about it efforts in music streaming, video streaming,

and Apple Pay. It is still moving forward on many fronts, but it is at

the moment a one trick pony in that most of its money still comes from

the smartphone. Staying with the sector, there is another firm that

is also reporting, which is Twitter. They continued to lose money,

revenue rose but the number of active users only grew by 3 million

since June. Shares are down by as much as 11% in extended trading.

And, Ali Barber reported its results, doing better than expected.

-- Alibaba. One of Australia's top lenders, the National Australia

Bank, has confirmed that it will sell 80% of its insurance branch to

a Japanese country. -- Co. For more on this, we are joined by Rick

Spooner from Sydney. We saw this rise in profits but most investors

are choosing to focus on the businesses that NAV is trying to

sell off chunks of its businesses. -- NAB. Why are they offloading

these businesses now? I think in an effort to improve its overall return

on equity, these businesses were both not earning the sort of radical

turn that NAB requires, they were a drag on the share price. I think it

outperformed its peers over the last few months. Do we know about the

bank's strategy over the next few months? A new CEO has been in

position for about a year, and they are becoming a more streamlined

business, but where do you think they will see profits going

forward? This is what the market is focusing its attention on, because

the NAB has paired itself back to being a traditional bank operating

in Australia and New Zealand, which is where almost all of its business

is going to be. Performance from here on in is going to be about

increasing or improving its performance in the domestic market.

Certainly it had lost share and in the business lending sector in

particular, where it had previously been top dog, if you like. So its

key focus now is going to be on trying to restore the profitability

of that business, and that will really be where the panellists will

be focused from here on in. Briefly, we know that China, the largest

trading partner Rob Australia, is starting to slow, selling many of

the businesses that NAB caters to. How will they mitigate the slowdown

in China? The slowdown in China poses an overall negative for the

Australian economy. Quite a lot of businesses in our economy are

dealing with a weaker Australian dollar, so businesses in the

small-business sector, involved in tourism and manufacturing, those

sort of areas where NAB is traditionally a strong lender, are

likely sources of revenue growth. Thank you for joining us.

Delegations from 54 nations are gathering in a four-day summit

focusing on expanding political and economic relationships in Africa.

While India's trade in Africa has jumped sixfold in the last five

years it is still a far cry from China's trade with Africa, which is

worth about $200 billion. As China's growth is slowing down, its

hunger for Africa's rich mineral resources is also slowing. Many see

this as an opportunity for India, but while India is keen to tap into

that it also wants to send a strong message that its interest in Africa

is beyond what is under the ground. The theme is human resources:

health,... I asked this university representative about their

investments. We have two campuses in Africa, in Mauritius and South

Africa, the African market is huge. The whole world is looking at the

African education market because African students are looking for

quality education from Asia and the world. Our plans in Africa to open a

few more campuses in countries like Nigeria and Kenya and Botswana. Do

you think India can contribute to this sector in Africa? It is about

the quality of students and faculty. If we have a good faculty who know

what the students are looking for, students in Africa and India are the

same everywhere. How big is the education sector in Africa, what

potential DRC in the market? It is a few billion dollars, growing by 10%

every year. We intend to open up Kenmore campuses in the next five

years. It is a huge market, and a huge opportunity for any player who

is looking to invest. Jongleur Marie has a passion in southern Taiwan,

recycling and reusing. As visitors kept coming, this couple realised

their hobby had given way to a business.

My treasures! This is just what is left over from some black boards

from high school, and they got rid of these and putting whiteboards,

and I grabbed them. What is really hard. These tiles came from the

house my wife was born in. As the saying goes, one man's trash is

another man's treasure. For this man, it also gave him a start to a

business. He gives everything he collates a new life. The blackboards

become the ceiling chalice, as well as the bar in this restaurant. There

is a groovy put it off in. These antique Japanese bottles, soy

sauce... The most important element, the newspapers. Mixed with cement

and water they become bricks. So strong are these that all of the

structure John has constructed with them survived several major

typhoons. Word spread about his unusual hobby. Now, more than 1000

people come to see his structures every month. They pay to learn to

make newspaper bricks and to see how John builds houses with them. People

also learn to make pizza, and John's wife cooks pastry in the

kitchen. The top stories this hour: The US

has confirmed that