06/01/2016 Asia Business Report

to campaign for or against Britain's mentorship of the EU for a

referendum. And now the Asia Business Report.

The battle could to control electronics behind the wheel. We

will have the latest from the world's biggest technology show in

Las Vegas. And businesses showing how staff with disabilities are

adding value to their bottom line. Hello. Glad you could join us for

this Wednesday edition of Asia Business Report. To kick off, we

will have the electronics insurers show in Las Vegas. Already, a series

of announcements have been made in advance. Some of the big trends this

year include technologies looking to disrupt traditional car companies.

It is backed by Chinese investors to rival an electric car maker, and

unveiled its first concept vehicle. Let's take a look.

When we start with a blank sheet of paper, what do you do? Shall we

reproduce what we've done before? Or should we actually try to create our

own heritage? Meanwhile, Toyota has revealed that

it has hired a new technical team of scientists and engineers who will do

research into robotics. It comes weeks after they announced plans to

set up the Toyota Research Institute to develop technologies like self

driving cars. Earlier I asked an analyst why cars are such a big

trend at this year's consumer Electronics show. The main reason is

computers have become so ubiquitous and powerful that they have become

more and more part of cars. In the end people want mobility, they want

to move, but cars are also a passion and with a deep learning

intelligence moving into cars now, there's a whole new world

developing. Then we have the Battle of the big Internet giants like

Google and Amazon who battle for the intelligence in the car. With Toyota

getting into the picture, are we likely to CLA Tronic cars being mass

produced in the near 3 to 5 years? Most projections go for self driving

cars to go commercial around 2020, which is around 4 or 5 years down

the road. But intelligence will be entered step-by-step gradually. We

will start with automatic parking and other intelligence and other

features. 1 company I'm very interested in is a company called

Preferred Networks, a Japanese company, they did a demonstration on

cars learning how to avoid crashing into each other. Toyota is not a

traditional technology company but it is at the consumer Electronics

show. Why aren't we seeing as much Japanese technology giants in this

show in Vegas this year? We have some, Sony will be big here, Toyota

have entered more or less for the 1st time here in Vegas. 1 issue is

that giants like Sharp and Toshiba have given up on TVs and they have

been losing money for years and years and years on TVs, they have

given up now, so they went be with their TVs any more in Las Vegas now.

You can get all the latest from the show on our website.

In other business news making headlines, Internet giant Yahoo is

shutting down its Screen after the website failed to

attract viewers. The closure is part of the company's efforts to cut

costs as Chief Executive Maris mayor tries to make it possible. They will

now spread their BDO contact with throughout the website. Foreign

investments in China reaching record levels of $126 billion in 2015

according to the state news agency. Investment from major countries kept

stable in 2015 and China's free trade zones are said to have been

major factors in the foreign capital inflow. You either own one or rent

one, then the outlook for property in 2016 has many homeowners worried

-- if you either. Homeowners in the major cities in the region are

heading south. In Singapore prices of residential homes are

experiencing their longest losing streak in 17 years, falling now for

nine consecutive quarters. In Sydney, it's no better. Home prices

recording their worst quarter in four years. Projections for other

major cities are bleak with interest rates likely to push up mortgages in

Hong Kong. Christopher Marriot, the Chief Executive of Savile, said 2015

was an interesting year for prime real estate especially. Tokyo has

shown fairly stable returns. Shanghai has actually come back this

quarter after probably a two-year downturn. As you said, Hong Kong and

Sydney have given up some of the games they had this year. But put in

respectable performances of 10% and 20% respectively, and Singapore

still struggling to shake off the shackles of the government cooling

measures. The property market right now, in which segment can investors

make money? Where do they put their smart money? There's always been an

attraction to the high end of the market. The rationale for buying is

not always driven by pure investment. There's a lot of hype

and war high net worth individuals looking at these markets as a safe

haven for their capital. And what about the Chinese market? The

Chinese market was one of the reasons we have seen a decline in

economic growth on the mainland. What is the outlook especially for

places like shanghaied? Shanghaied put in a good performance this

quarter. With the quantitive easing they have had and the improvement in

liquidity, we have seen the high net worth individuals in Shanghai going

back into the market. As you said, the performance of the Shanghai

market has actually improved this quarter. Now you have an Asian

economic community, and where are the bright spots in south-east Asia

in terms of upside in the real estate market? Manila has had a

rebound on the back of the MNCs looking at the back office

functions. There's a push on the rent land prices there. My outlier

bet would be Vietnam, where we have seen a very large young population

moving back into the housing market as interest rates come down from 20%

to below 10%. Christopher Marriot from the property company Savile is.

Having a disability has long been a barrier to getting a good education

and a decent job. Without access to the right schools or vocational

training, most disabled people live in desperate property. However,

major companies in both the private and public sector are beginning to

change attitudes -- poverty. We now report from Delhi in our new

section, Business of Giving. Every day is a busy day for a

hotel's concierge, moving bags around and making sure they reach

the right rooms is something Rabbie does well. The 23-year-old is

hearing and speech impaired, something that doesn't stop him

doing his job. Ravi is one of the 400 employees with disabilities at

Lemon Trees hotels. Now the company has an ambitious plan of a new

property completely run by people with disabilities. The group

chairman says while it will involve additional costs, he think it will

be a good business model in the long run. It is no grand overarching

strategy, but if it's possible then we will do it again. It is

restructuring the hotel and making it more accessible not only for the

front end, which is for guests, but for staff. We have started doing it

step-by-step. India has 21 million people living with disabilities, of

which 1.2 million are unable to hear or speak or both, but there are very

few specialised schools for them, leaving most of them unemployable.

Corporate India is taking the lead in training and employing many of

them, recognising hiring people with disabilities is good for the bottom

line. In the tangible economic benefits, many see a business case

for including people with disabilities in the workforce.

Asia-Pacific stock markets are lacklustre two week after US

equities closed mixed overnight and there is still this worry about

lower Chinese economic growth. -- lacklustre two week. Still thank,

Japan, Hong Kong and Australia in negative territory. Thank you for

spending your time with us. I'm Rico Hizon. Goodbye for now.

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