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Too early to call a recovery. Or is oil beginning to shake off its | :00:15. | :00:26. | |
losing streak? On the take. We find out if India is having any success | :00:27. | :00:34. | |
cleaning up corruption. Hello and welcome to Asia Business Report. | :00:35. | :00:39. | |
Investors will be keeping a close eye on oil this week to see if it | :00:40. | :00:44. | |
continues its winning streak. During Friday trade, it climbed above $42, | :00:45. | :00:48. | |
reaching its highest mark of the year so far. It slipped slightly but | :00:49. | :00:59. | |
this is a major reversal for oil prices which had plunged before this | :01:00. | :01:04. | |
latest surge. I talked to a representative from the oil industry | :01:05. | :01:09. | |
about whether a corner has been turned. We have seen a remarkable | :01:10. | :01:12. | |
recovery in the last few weeks in oil prices. A few things have | :01:13. | :01:16. | |
happened in the last few weeks. I think one of them is we had a few | :01:17. | :01:21. | |
supply disruptions. Pipeline disruptions, 1-dimensional -- one in | :01:22. | :01:39. | |
Manchuria, and a decline in oil production in the United States. | :01:40. | :01:43. | |
Payrolls were better than expected in non-American producing countries. | :01:44. | :01:55. | |
So it is not just supply and demand, there are many aspects behind it and | :01:56. | :02:02. | |
the Fed has said that easing monetary policy has led to investor | :02:03. | :02:08. | |
appetite for assets like oil. Of course. On the demand side it is | :02:09. | :02:13. | |
very much related to world economics. On the supply-side, of | :02:14. | :02:17. | |
course, there are a host of factors have been playing a role. We're | :02:18. | :02:24. | |
finding some excess supply getting out of the market. If you look at | :02:25. | :02:32. | |
the latest IAEA report, they clearly say that the excess supply, 1.5 | :02:33. | :02:40. | |
barrels per day in quarter one and expected to be the same importer | :02:41. | :02:43. | |
to, it is going to shrink too much smaller later on in the year. April | :02:44. | :02:53. | |
17 visit big day for oil as OPEC producers meet then. Will Saudi | :02:54. | :02:57. | |
Arabia's agenda be to keep oil prices low and drive out American | :02:58. | :03:01. | |
producers? Actually, what they are looking to do is freeze production | :03:02. | :03:12. | |
at January levels. That is what they have been talking about, Russia and | :03:13. | :03:18. | |
Saudi Arabia, the two largest suppliers. They've been talking | :03:19. | :03:22. | |
about freezing production at those levels and taking out the excess | :03:23. | :03:25. | |
supply to try to rebalance the market. This is a big thing because | :03:26. | :03:31. | |
all along, Saudi Arabia has maintained, let prices crash, we | :03:32. | :03:35. | |
don't care, we can produce at really low levels, so let the high-cost | :03:36. | :03:41. | |
producer suffered. But eventually it will reach a point where they will | :03:42. | :03:51. | |
do something about it. In other business news, China's central-bank | :03:52. | :03:55. | |
governor says his latest data shows that the amount of money being taken | :03:56. | :04:00. | |
out of the country is actually going down. Capital outflow has been a | :04:01. | :04:06. | |
major concern as China struggles with slowing growth and Beijing has | :04:07. | :04:08. | |
been trying to reassure investors that it still has a grip on the | :04:09. | :04:13. | |
country's economy. It does seem Chinese consumers have taken on that | :04:14. | :04:18. | |
optimism despite the slowdown. New research shows 55% of consumers are | :04:19. | :04:23. | |
confident their income will increase significantly over the next five | :04:24. | :04:27. | |
years and that is just two percentage points lower than in 2012 | :04:28. | :04:32. | |
when economic growth was stronger. Earlier I spoke to a representative | :04:33. | :04:36. | |
from a consulting group responsible for this new study and I asked why | :04:37. | :04:40. | |
Chinese consumers were feeling good about the economy while it was | :04:41. | :04:45. | |
weakening. Chinese consumers are aware of the economic situation and | :04:46. | :04:49. | |
they do see the currency negotiations and stock market | :04:50. | :04:52. | |
turmoil. At the same time they do remain confident. As you spelled | :04:53. | :04:59. | |
out, over the last three years consumer confidence has remained | :05:00. | :05:02. | |
largely unchanged, which is a big surprise to us when we received the | :05:03. | :05:08. | |
results back from the research. The main reason we are seeing God is | :05:09. | :05:11. | |
that, so far unemployment has remained minimal. -- seeing that. At | :05:12. | :05:23. | |
that point, the Chinese consumers are not yet feeling on their own the | :05:24. | :05:29. | |
impact of that. But it is fragmented by geography because not everyone | :05:30. | :05:32. | |
across the country feels the same way. You are absolutely right. Just | :05:33. | :05:43. | |
a few years ago, everything in China was growing and consumers were | :05:44. | :05:47. | |
spending across all categories. Now the differences are very big when it | :05:48. | :05:51. | |
comes to different regions. In the northeastern part of China, for | :05:52. | :05:56. | |
example, we do observe that consumer confidence has sharply declined. At | :05:57. | :06:01. | |
the same time, in the eastern coast of the southern part of China, it | :06:02. | :06:04. | |
has increased compared with three years ago. The same is also true for | :06:05. | :06:08. | |
the spending patterns. Everything is no longer growing but this | :06:09. | :06:16. | |
categories are. Product base spending has shifted to service | :06:17. | :06:19. | |
-based spending. Movie Theatre spending has doubled over the last | :06:20. | :06:23. | |
three years for example. The other thing is mass consumption has | :06:24. | :06:26. | |
changed to more premium consumption and we have seen that across many | :06:27. | :06:34. | |
categories, most noteworthy, cosmetics and skincare. In the past, | :06:35. | :06:39. | |
this has been primarily domestic spending but today, 70 million | :06:40. | :06:41. | |
Chinese have travelled overseas in the last year. Corruption. Whether | :06:42. | :06:50. | |
paying a bribe or needing inside contacts to get things done, it is | :06:51. | :06:54. | |
something that has long been a problem in India. But is the | :06:55. | :06:59. | |
situation starting to improve? In 2013 India was ranked only 94th in | :07:00. | :07:04. | |
the transparency international index where first is perceived as least | :07:05. | :07:11. | |
corrupt. By 2015, it had moved up to 76 but that is still a long way to | :07:12. | :07:16. | |
go. There are suggestions that technology is helping India slowly | :07:17. | :07:20. | |
clean up its act and its image. Now we go to our correspondent. Caught | :07:21. | :07:27. | |
in the act. A Delhi traffic policeman films taking money. | :07:28. | :07:32. | |
Shocking as it may be, bribery like this, usually small amounts of money | :07:33. | :07:35. | |
taken by officials for doing something that should be free, has | :07:36. | :07:41. | |
long been a way of life in many Indian cities. Now the police forces | :07:42. | :07:46. | |
trying to clean up the system, starting with their own. Using basic | :07:47. | :07:50. | |
technology, people can use the messaging service WhatsApp to submit | :07:51. | :07:56. | |
evidence of alleged wrongdoings and they have had thousands of | :07:57. | :08:05. | |
responses. Compared to the amount invested to make the service more | :08:06. | :08:08. | |
accessible to the public, I feel the economic impact on the average | :08:09. | :08:15. | |
citizen would be much more. Cracking down on often petty corruption on | :08:16. | :08:19. | |
the street corner is one thing. Another big frustration many Indians | :08:20. | :08:22. | |
have come across is that getting even official things like passports | :08:23. | :08:26. | |
can only be done if you know the right person or pay the right | :08:27. | :08:30. | |
bribe. Somite technology be helping to clean up that as well -- so | :08:31. | :08:38. | |
might? India issues over 12 million passports each year. It used to be | :08:39. | :08:41. | |
an endless wait to get one but now the process can take as little as 48 | :08:42. | :08:46. | |
hours. That is partly down to the technology automating the system, | :08:47. | :08:51. | |
making things more streamlined. But the government department | :08:52. | :08:54. | |
responsible says computers have stripped away the opportunities for | :08:55. | :09:00. | |
under the table bribes. It makes the service paperless. It makes the | :09:01. | :09:07. | |
bureaucracy faceless and also the operations become cashless. Once you | :09:08. | :09:11. | |
make the operation cashless, the corruption loses control. From | :09:12. | :09:22. | |
fingerprints scanning to keeping digital records, it may seem basic | :09:23. | :09:26. | |
budget is technology making a difference. With India increasingly | :09:27. | :09:30. | |
looking for outside investment, often from countries with very | :09:31. | :09:32. | |
strict anti- bribery and corruption laws, making doing business here | :09:33. | :09:38. | |
more transparent can only help. And in the war on corruption, technology | :09:39. | :09:46. | |
is looking like a potent weapon. A quick look at the markets before we | :09:47. | :09:51. | |
go. Really quiet in Asia today. The Nikkei is close for a public holiday | :09:52. | :09:57. | |
and fairly flat trade is taking place in Hong Kong with the Hang | :09:58. | :10:01. | |
Seng opening slightly higher than usual. In Australia, we're seeing a | :10:02. | :10:05. | |
lot of energy related stocks being sold off, possibly because of the | :10:06. | :10:12. | |
flight slide in oil prices late on Friday. -- slight. There are also | :10:13. | :10:19. | |
calls from the Prime Minister for an early election in Australia which | :10:20. | :10:25. | |
will lead to investor caution. That is all for this edition of Asia | :10:26. | :10:27. | |
Business Report. Thank you for watching. | :10:28. | :10:33. |