06/04/2016 Asia Business Report

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

India's Tata steel is set to sell some of its UK operations in a

market flooded with cheap steel. This rare artefact from China going

under the hammer in Hong Kong. Good morning, Asia, hello, world. Glad

you could join us for this Wednesday edition of Asia Business Report. I

am Rico Hizon in Singapore and the British business Secretary is

heading to India to secure the future of Tata's steel operations in

the UK. It is facing problems because of excessive steel from

mainland China and this Wednesday there is expected to be in agreement

to take over some of Tata's operations in Britain. The pressure

from cheap Chinese products will remain. I spoke to the Vice

Chancellor of the University of Sheffield, a famous British steel

town. I asked whether he was optimistic about the deal. I am

optimistic for part of it. Part of the British steel industry makes

high-value, precise components made in modern steel plants. The old part

of it is more tough. If you look at Port Talbot, they will have a hard

time getting through. So there is a market for high-end steel

manufacturers but for the ones making basic steel, that is where

you have the Chinese making dime a dozen steel manufacturing. You

should be very careful not just to blame China. Written has

underinvested in parts of its steel industry and it is old and will have

to change anyway. There is a worldwide glut of steel, partly

because of the downturn in construction and because of the gas

industry. People are not making as much would steal these days.

Commodity industry is tanking, there is some kind of recovery but China

is also recovering despite the issues of the global steel industry,

with millions of people losing their jobs there as well. Absolutely

right, and that is what we have to be aware of. China is employing 1.8

million people and we have to work with China. Having a trade war,

saying China is bad and we are not going to buy their product is not

the answer either. With the issues of China, how will this impact the

global steel industry, not only for basic steel making but also for

high-end steel manufacturers? It is going to take a while for the

economy to settle where we have a balance between what is being made

and what needs to be bought. It is going to take a couple of years for

that to happen and what we must be careful is not to badmouth China and

breakdown relationships. We must keep them, looking at the strategic

ones, building a nuclear relationship with China. We need

precision stuff, we need high-value components, we need an industry that

can make it. Across Europe we need to rethink the products we need.

What about bringing back import tariffs briefly? The thing we look

at, the US has very high import tariffs on Chinese steel so there is

big pressure on the UK and Europe to have higher tariffs. We try and

balance the idea of other things we are exporting to China so we need to

be careful we don't rake the relationships and make it worse for

us as a whole. -- break the relationships. Global military

spending has risen for the first time since the US began withdrawing

troops from the Iraq and Afghanistan. That is according to a

peace research Institute which estimates defence spending rising by

nearly 1.7 trillion US dollars in 2015. This marks the first increase

in three years and part of the reason for the rise is a growing

arms race between China and its neighbours. Australia's securities

regulator has launched legal action against Westpac, it is accused --

tasked with setting the primary interest rate. The Australian

Security and investment commission has started proceedings against ANZ

bank as well. Both banks have rejected the allegations. Investors

are drawn for safe havens -- drawn to safe havens for their money and

one of the oldest is gold. In a way, global uncertainty is good news for

this precious metal. Since the beginning of the year the price has

gone up to 15%. At will it be able to sustain its shine? -- but will

it. It is still very hard to forecast the price of gold moving

forward but we are quite a leash on gold. We are seeing a lot of demand

at this level and we are certainly seeing our production and very high

levels at this meant, we see that continuing for the next few months.

Whereas the biggest demand for gold in Asia? There is huge demand coming

out of China for gold, and most of the gold we refine is going into the

Chinese market. Why are the Chinese buying gold? There is a huge,

emerging middle and upper-class and the Chinese market and there is a

huge demand for gold in terms of jewellery, in terms of buying

bullion products, and it is just like any other country. As the

middle and upper classes emerge, they are looking to buy gold and

also have their safe haven. How much of this rebound can be put down to

concerns about the global economy and China's slow down? I would put

almost 100% of that down to concerns about the global economy. The

slowdown in the Chinese economy will affect many other economies to rout

the world. Europe has still got it issues they are trying to work

through, the potential for negative interest rates which will really

have an impact on investors. And what people do in times of

uncertainty, they look for a safe haven and they see gold as that safe

haven. Chinese telecommunications giant ZTE is shaking up its

management, including its chief executive. It is trying to rebuild

its business and reputation after the US commerce Department last

month imposed trade sanctions against the company, alleging it

violated US trading rules. China's e-commerce giant Alibaba is

launching its payment application in Europe to allow Chinese tourists to

pay for things overseas. It is the biggest push out of Asia yet for the

payment service. Alipay is one of the biggest payment services and

competes with Tencent's payment service. It is being billed as the

most historic Chinese object ever to be offered at auction. This is a

steel at the gate of heaven, belonging to China's longest

reigning monarch. It is made out of sandalwood, and it airs the

inscription Revere haven't and serve your people. -- Revere heaven. This

is the largest seal ever carved for the longest reigning monarch in the

history of China. It is a cross between a Dragon and a pig, a

supernatural beast, and on the base it has these four characters which

means Revere heaven and serve your people. It is a symbol of the

heavenly mandate. Does this object automatically confer the mandate of

Heaven or do you have to win that mandate by overthrowing the previous

emperor in battle or other ways? What the steel says it is you have

to serve your people in order to be the legitimate ruler. Only a

benevolent ruler can be empowered. That is what it really says. What

does an object like this suggest about the nature of political power

in China? The concept of the mandate of heaven is still very clearly

present in the psyche of the Chinese people. During the end of Chairman

Mao's reign there was a huge earthquake and a lot of people took

this as a possible sign he was losing the mandate of heaven. Where

has this field in the past 300 years? It is very, very difficult to

pinpoint where it was in the last 50 or 100 years because until 20 years

ago historical works of art like these were not particularly sought

after. It would have been kept in the Palace of Ancestors, overlooking

the forbidden city up until the early 20th century. It may have left

China during the Boxer Rebellion. That is possible. And it would have

been in Europe for many decades afterwards. So the value of this

item lies in its association with its owner. Exactly, is a work of art

it is very beautiful, it is a very large piece of sandalwood. But its

value commercially is quite limited. The value is really in the four

characters, and what the seal symbolises. That it is a real

historical work of art and there has been a market for these things in

China, Taiwan and Hong Kong for the last 50 years. And we will find out

how much this sandalwood seal will be fetching at an auction in Hong

Kong. Here is a quick look at the markets, and Asian stocks are

currently moving sideways to higher this Wednesday, after US equities

fell overnight due to weak economic data out of Europe and the US. Thank

you so much for investing your time with