10/12/2015 Asia Business Report

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

A U-turn on Yahoo. They plan to unload Alibaba but they will sell

off other assets -- they do not plan. Air -- AirAsia's chief

executive talks about his struggles in a very competitive Asian market.

Good morning Asia and hello world. Thank you for joining us for Asia

Business Report. Holding on to Alibaba, that is what struggling

technology giant, Yahoo has done. Yahoo will spin off its other assets

including a stake in Yahoo Japan. The endgame for Yahoo! Is to make

itself and its other components easy to sell if buyers were to emerge. I

spoke at my colleague earlier and asked why Yahoo was holding onto

Alibaba win a stake sale would bring in billions of dollars in profits.

It was meant to be a way to raise lots of money but it could have cost

them lots in taxes. That is what had investors so worried. The chairman

and chief executive admitted as much in a conference call earlier on

Wednesday with investors. So instead, Yahoo has abandoned the

plan in favour of spinning off parts of their company that consumers can

see like their search engine, tumbler and Flickr. Given its large

user base, it still has a business which might revoke Ealing to

potential buyers -- Tumblr. -- might prove appealing. What is their

timetable? You are right to mention Yahoo Japan earlier, that is a core

part they are thinking of selling. It will probably take about a year

or so to unravel all of this and it will be a bit of a dilemma. Yahoo is

the second biggest shareholder after Softbank and the CEO has been happy

to leave the running of Yahoo Japan to them but whoever purchases the

state may not feel the same way which could be a problem for their

CEO. Does he buy the stake or hope that someone friendly steps in to

help or does he take a gamble and have the stake sold on the open

market? In other business news, the Australian dollar is up by more than

1% against the US dollar in midmorning Asian trade following a

surprise jump in employment. The Australian economy added more than

71,000 jobs in November, beating expectations for a fall in jobs. The

latest data puts the unemployment rate in Australia at 5.8%. In New

Zealand, the Federal bank there has lowered its lending rate to a record

low of 2.5% and that was the fourth rate cut since June this year. The

economy has been struggling because of falling global dairy prices and a

slowdown in China, which is their largest trading partner. American

energy company Chevron is plenty to cut its budget by 15% next year.

Will prices have fallen by more than half over the past 18 months. From

2016, they now plan to shift their focus to international oil and gas

exploration as well as production projects around the world. It is not

exactly the New York Stock Exchange or the Nikkei by Myanmar's first

stock exchange will open early next year -- but. The names of the first

six companies will be announced. It has been made possible by the easing

of international sanctions and technical assistance from the

Japanese government. Now we go to our correspondent. This is where

Myanmar's first-ever stock exchange will be. It is a colonial era

building built in 1939. It used to be this country's reserve Bank.

We're inside the building now, let me show you around. This the trading

floor in here, and you can see, it is quite nice, really. The old

colonial interior is still very much intact. But compared to than York

Stock exchange or something like that, it is pretty small -- the New

York Stock Exchange. There will only be six companies floated in the

initial listing and they're not starting trading today. The bell is

only going to start to ring here properly at the end of February,

possibly March. For Myanmar to get access to funds to the world

economy, the stock exchange will be a very important instrument for

companies in terms of investment. How big of a difference will it make

to companies here that they can raise money through the stock

market? It will be very big, because it opens another window for

companies to get funding instead of going to the banks. There is not

much transparency in business here, are you worried that the stock

exchange might be vulnerable to manipulation? No, no because under

the recent stock exchange regulations, transparency is one of

the most important aspects. Budget is only good the enforcement

authority -- but it. If a company wants to be listed, they have to

follow our rules and relations. Is this going to be a small, sleepy

stock exchange like the one in Cambodia or her Laos? I don't think

so, because they have one or two companies only and we are starting

with six. In my opinion and observation, they are qualified

public companies. They will come under the regulatory framework of

our stock exchange. So you expected to grow rapidly? Yes. -- expect it.

Last year AirAsia India became the first carrier with foreign

investment to start operations in the country but it is facing major

challenges and reported losses of more than $9 million from the end of

September this year. In an exclusive interview, we asked the chief

executive why his airline is losing money. These are not unexpected

losses, when we put this business plan together... India is a massive

market but it is a market that is still developing, both in terms of

infrastructure, airports and so forth. It is a very price sensitive

market so we knew that from day one. You were quoted as saying that by

the end of 2015, you wanted to have as many as 30 aircraft flying in the

air and you have six at the moment. Yes. Why the gap? Honestly I was

just waiting for clarity under our new regulatory laws. We been waiting

for a year and we delayed a lot of our plans. Have you been put off by

the market? Are you less enthusiastic about it than you were

when you started operations last year? No, hand to heart, it is a

market we are still so excited about. That being said, it is very

frustrating in the sense that things are moving a lot slower than we

would like. Being in the private sector, we don't have the luxury of

having patients, and we are using thin margins and you need to grab

opportunities quickly. The government has set out a draft

aviation policy and they have set quite an ambitious target for

passenger numbers they want to see. They want them to grow more than

four times over in four -6 years. Is that achievable given what you have

seen in the past year with the new government and what has been

happening on the ground? I have personally seen what we went through

from getting our licenses to struggling to get what we had. I can

tell you it has become a lot better. It has been slow-moving to

get to where we are, but it is nice to see a draft policy. Not everyone

will be happy with it, we certainly are not, with one or two aspects of

it, but it is a good move by the government to recognise that these

laws need to change. In the current scenario with the taxes like they

are, is it really possible to be a low-fare airline? I think the

misconception is that you can't be profitable in this market. You can.

Just look at the amount of people who want to travel. We are working

on razor thin margins which means your business has to be run on such

a gradient, and be very cost conscious. It means you can't invest

is broadly in the business that you would like to. More of this

interview with the AirAsia India CEO is on BBC World News at these

times. And here's a quick look at the markets. More red arrows on the

regional boards with more losses. A selloff in technology stocks in the

US leaves Japan, Hong Kong and Australia all in the loss column.

That is all for now, thank