Browse content similar to 18/03/2016. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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standards, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. | :00:00. | :00:17. | |
New look ministries for a new government, but what will it mean | :00:18. | :00:23. | |
for Myanmar's economy? Can China keep the good times rolling or is | :00:24. | :00:29. | |
it's economic slowdown worse than first thought? Welcome to Asia | :00:30. | :00:43. | |
Business Report. When Myanmar's new administration takes office next | :00:44. | :00:47. | |
month it will be the first democratically elected government in | :00:48. | :00:50. | |
52 years. It will also be much smaller. The incoming government has | :00:51. | :00:56. | |
announced a dramatic cut off the number of ministries from 36 to 21. | :00:57. | :01:01. | |
Earlier, I asked the business consultant what the political | :01:02. | :01:05. | |
transition will mean for the country's economy. What the | :01:06. | :01:09. | |
government is trying to do is become much more effective, and instead of | :01:10. | :01:15. | |
having a very large administration, it has cut down the ministries from | :01:16. | :01:22. | |
31 to 21. It makes sense to combine ministries, like agriculture and | :01:23. | :01:30. | |
livestock and fisheries. So, it hopes to achieve a high level of | :01:31. | :01:34. | |
growth. Obviously they are saving money on the budget as well. Sure, | :01:35. | :01:41. | |
but I don't think the savings will be huge. The main objective is to | :01:42. | :01:47. | |
have an effective government, because the main challenge, or one | :01:48. | :01:51. | |
of the main challenges for Aung San Suu Kyi and her NLD government will | :01:52. | :01:59. | |
be managing a very high expectations. Yes, and they made a | :02:00. | :02:05. | |
lot of promises, a lot of Democratic promises. What do we know about | :02:06. | :02:09. | |
their economic reforms? So, we really have the sea who she will | :02:10. | :02:18. | |
appoint in her cabinet together with the new president. The expectation | :02:19. | :02:21. | |
is that they will continue the current course, really focusing on | :02:22. | :02:27. | |
attracting investment, building infrastructure. Myanmar cannot | :02:28. | :02:36. | |
industrialise without electricity, you can't industrialise on | :02:37. | :02:39. | |
generators. You say it is about attracting investment, and you are a | :02:40. | :02:44. | |
regular visitor. What have you seen internet changes that have | :02:45. | :02:46. | |
transpired since the economy opened up to foreign investment? DEC at | :02:47. | :02:51. | |
flowing in and other concerns with the Chinese slowdown? No, because | :02:52. | :02:56. | |
Myanmar is not exporting much to China. Actually, we have seen | :02:57. | :03:03. | |
investment is coming from mainly other parts of the world, like | :03:04. | :03:09. | |
Japan, Europe, the rest of Asia. The expectation is that more investment | :03:10. | :03:15. | |
will come in now there is a new government. What we have to see is | :03:16. | :03:20. | |
if she herself will be part of the government, it is likely she will | :03:21. | :03:23. | |
stay in Parliament. In other business news, tech giant Toshiba is | :03:24. | :03:28. | |
to sell its medical equipment unit to fellow Japanese company Canon. | :03:29. | :03:34. | |
Toshiba is struggling with getting over a massive accounting scandal | :03:35. | :03:40. | |
uncovered last year, and hope to restructure its bloated business | :03:41. | :03:45. | |
operations. But the book keeping nightmare might not be over yet. | :03:46. | :03:49. | |
Toshiba says it has received requests from the US over accounting | :03:50. | :03:53. | |
issues as well. The national people's Congress wrapped up in | :03:54. | :04:00. | |
Beijing this year, as the rubberstamp parliament approved | :04:01. | :04:03. | |
another five-year plan with slower growth targets. As China's economy | :04:04. | :04:11. | |
has cooled, some are pointing to storm clouds on the horizon. I asked | :04:12. | :04:17. | |
how next guest about the country's debt levels. The numbers are even | :04:18. | :04:22. | |
dramatically bigger. They have added $20 trillion of bank and corporate | :04:23. | :04:28. | |
and government debt, and the total now is pushing $30 trillion. If it | :04:29. | :04:33. | |
was all good that it might not be a problem, because China is a fairly | :04:34. | :04:38. | |
big country. It is not good that they have used it to expand | :04:39. | :04:41. | |
infrastructure, which is unneeded, to finance state-owned enterprises | :04:42. | :04:48. | |
that are overbuilt and have too much capacity, with banks just handing | :04:49. | :04:53. | |
out to stimulate the economy. As much as $10 trillion of that could | :04:54. | :04:56. | |
turn out to be bad debt. These are large numbers, and what we have | :04:57. | :05:00. | |
heard from Chinese authorities in the last couple of weeks is that | :05:01. | :05:04. | |
they have a handle on things. They are reassuring the rest of the world | :05:05. | :05:09. | |
that China continues to grow, their target is 6.5%. Are you saying that | :05:10. | :05:13. | |
isn't true? I don't believe the numbers. I have studied this a | :05:14. | :05:19. | |
little bit, I have gone on the fact what their electrical consumption | :05:20. | :05:23. | |
has done, what their power consumption has done, and what their | :05:24. | :05:27. | |
coal consumption has done. In each of those categories, which ought to | :05:28. | :05:33. | |
be good measures of economic activity, but each of those has | :05:34. | :05:37. | |
declined in growth. You have made a living out of writing books | :05:38. | :05:40. | |
predicting financial crises, and the word is that if you predict them | :05:41. | :05:43. | |
long enough they will happen. What makes you think you are right now? | :05:44. | :05:49. | |
When I looked at the US, for example, back in 2003 and 2006, I | :05:50. | :05:55. | |
felt a duty to blow a whistle. People were buying homes in Las | :05:56. | :06:00. | |
Vegas or 900,000 dollars that had sold for 240,000 seven years | :06:01. | :06:04. | |
previously. Everywhere I looked there were these kind of trouble is | :06:05. | :06:07. | |
in a world where wages have been for almost 20 years straight. China may | :06:08. | :06:14. | |
be slowing but it is not always easy to make sense of the numbers. With a | :06:15. | :06:18. | |
wealth of so-called tech unicorns, there is a big bunch of DNS, and how | :06:19. | :06:26. | |
should you read the statistics? The Chinese state media says China | :06:27. | :06:29. | |
is full of unicorns. There are 40 in Beijing alone. No, not these | :06:30. | :06:38. | |
unicorns, but these ones. Start-up tech companies valued at over 1 | :06:39. | :06:41. | |
billion US dollars. Some say Beijing is a hub to unicorns, second only to | :06:42. | :06:49. | |
Silicon Valley in California. Others think those figures might not stack | :06:50. | :06:54. | |
up, but some of those tech companies might even that less magical | :06:55. | :07:02. | |
unicorn, more Shetland pony. So what is the truth and why should you | :07:03. | :07:05. | |
care? Has the answer tells us something about the real state of | :07:06. | :07:08. | |
the Chinese economy, the economy that is powering world growth. As | :07:09. | :07:13. | |
China's economy grinds to a halt, there could be a serious domino | :07:14. | :07:19. | |
effect around the world. Company valuations are based in part on | :07:20. | :07:25. | |
future earning potential. China's companies are suffering, and the | :07:26. | :07:30. | |
outlook is less rosy. One private Chinese research firm says Beijing | :07:31. | :07:34. | |
is home to more billionaires another of -- than any other place in the | :07:35. | :07:39. | |
world. Including the capital of capitalism, New York. Forbes | :07:40. | :07:43. | |
Magazine says that is wrong, New York has way more. Billion-dollar | :07:44. | :07:49. | |
companies or billion-dollar people? Somewhat to claim their numbers are | :07:50. | :07:53. | |
growing in China, but it is important to remember who has an | :07:54. | :07:58. | |
interest in polishing those numbers. The questions from Celia Hatton, but | :07:59. | :08:02. | |
despite China's claims, the other big question is whether Asia can | :08:03. | :08:05. | |
catch up when it comes to creating the next so-called unicorn. If you | :08:06. | :08:11. | |
look at tech start-ups worth more than $1 billion, there are only | :08:12. | :08:16. | |
about 143 of them globally, and over half of them are based in the US. We | :08:17. | :08:23. | |
met a successful tech entrepreneur whose latest venture is backed by | :08:24. | :08:28. | |
the Facebook co-founder. My background was that I got fascinated | :08:29. | :08:31. | |
with tech start-ups back in the days when I first discovered e-mail. It | :08:32. | :08:38. | |
is completely changed how we communicate with each other, how we | :08:39. | :08:43. | |
find information, all within the span of one or two years. All of | :08:44. | :08:48. | |
this innovation came from a tiny place in California called Silicon | :08:49. | :08:54. | |
valley. It is not much larger than Singapore, and it was fascinating to | :08:55. | :08:57. | |
me how such a small place and such a small group of people with ideas and | :08:58. | :09:02. | |
determination could completely change the world globally. What is | :09:03. | :09:06. | |
the difference between public or government funding and going the | :09:07. | :09:12. | |
private route, to a venture capital investor? I think most start-ups do | :09:13. | :09:17. | |
both. What is the difference? Really the private route tends to be more | :09:18. | :09:23. | |
risk tolerant and faster. The government route tends to take a lot | :09:24. | :09:27. | |
more overhead, creating a certain burden in terms of compliance and | :09:28. | :09:33. | |
paperwork and auditing they need to do. Start-ups' goal is not to be | :09:34. | :09:43. | |
compliant, it is to change things. Is it really competitive among | :09:44. | :09:48. | |
start-ups given that that has become a crowded space to get venture | :09:49. | :09:51. | |
capital funding? No, it is the opposite. The money has grown much | :09:52. | :09:56. | |
faster than the number of people competing for it. It has got a lot | :09:57. | :10:01. | |
easier to get money today. Let's have a look at the markets, because | :10:02. | :10:04. | |
we are continuing to see those losses on the Nikkei, due to the | :10:05. | :10:09. | |
strong yen. Remember this week the Fed reserve said there would be a | :10:10. | :10:17. | |
much looser monetary policy going forward. That means the dollar has | :10:18. | :10:20. | |
fallen and a stronger yen is eating into exports. However, the Hang Seng | :10:21. | :10:26. | |
and Australia, they are making gains. Positive lead from Wall | :10:27. | :10:31. | |
Street, and much higher commodity in oil prices. -- and oil prices. | :10:32. | :10:42. | |
The top stories this hour: EU leaders have agreed a plan to ease | :10:43. | :10:46. | |
the migrant crisis, they hope to strike a deal with Turkey on Friday. | :10:47. | :10:49. | |
North Korea has fired two ballistic missiles into the sea, stoking | :10:50. | :10:53. |