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Now on BBC News, all the latest business news live from Singapore. | :00:00. | :00:15. | |
More evidence of slowing global growth, aluminium giants reporting a | :00:16. | :00:24. | |
big drop in earnings. And concerns arise over Singaporethe date of | :00:25. | :00:38. | |
workers in Singapore. Good morning, hello world! Glad you could join us. | :00:39. | :00:51. | |
We kick off with the aluminium giant that has unveiled its results. Alcoa | :00:52. | :01:06. | |
posted a first-quarter net profit of 16 billion US dollars, down 92% | :01:07. | :01:11. | |
compared to one year ago. The company has also considered sharing | :01:12. | :01:17. | |
another 1000 jobs. Earlier I spoke with a resource analyst who says | :01:18. | :01:25. | |
earnings beat expectations. If you have a look at the consensus for the | :01:26. | :01:31. | |
period, it was done at 2 cents. So the company certainly beat its | :01:32. | :01:35. | |
consensus estimate. That is why we saw the stock roll up quite strongly | :01:36. | :01:42. | |
overnight. If you are inside that result, they reported $232 million | :01:43. | :01:47. | |
of productivity gains, and we certainly think the market was not | :01:48. | :01:50. | |
prepared to see that sort of number. There were certainly some good | :01:51. | :01:56. | |
positives. There were some positives, and of late we have seen | :01:57. | :02:00. | |
rising prices for commodities and a softening dollar. Will this help | :02:01. | :02:09. | |
earnings this quarter? Certainly when we have a look at the corner we | :02:10. | :02:17. | |
are now win, if you have a look at the first quarter of 2016, | :02:18. | :02:21. | |
sequentially the aluminium price for the last quarter of 2015 in the | :02:22. | :02:27. | |
first quarter of this year, the prices are actually fairly stable | :02:28. | :02:29. | |
between the two quarters. We do think that when we have a look at | :02:30. | :02:34. | |
the next quarter, that we will see those priced variances starting to | :02:35. | :02:39. | |
reduce or in fact disappearing altogether. That would be a very big | :02:40. | :02:45. | |
positive. Especially given those productivity gains we are seeing | :02:46. | :02:48. | |
inside the company. With rising prices of commodities, this turns | :02:49. | :02:55. | |
into rising demand for commodities? We certainly think that at this | :02:56. | :03:00. | |
point, commodity prices are very low in terms of the cycle of pricing. It | :03:01. | :03:05. | |
is not going to detract too much from the rising demand. We do need | :03:06. | :03:09. | |
that rising demand to see those prices increase, so we would suspect | :03:10. | :03:13. | |
that at this point we may get a little bit of a sweet spot, although | :03:14. | :03:19. | |
it will only be small we will see rising demand and start to see | :03:20. | :03:23. | |
rising product delivery inside companies. David Lennox, a | :03:24. | :03:30. | |
commodities analyst. One country that has been hit by falling | :03:31. | :03:34. | |
commodity prices is Australia, are still views its relationship with | :03:35. | :03:39. | |
its biggest customer, China, as the key to its future economic success. | :03:40. | :03:48. | |
Australia's economic Trade Minister is in China, and speaking to our | :03:49. | :03:53. | |
correspondence. A massive Australian business delegation is in China this | :03:54. | :03:59. | |
week. We are talking 1000 people in ten cities, it is apparently the | :04:00. | :04:03. | |
largest ever of such a delegation to have left Australia's shores. Even | :04:04. | :04:07. | |
in hard times in China, they are hoping to boost China-Australian | :04:08. | :04:14. | |
trade. I am the Australian Embassy in Beijing with Australia's Trade | :04:15. | :04:20. | |
Minister. Could you tell us what your take on the Chinese economy is | :04:21. | :04:23. | |
at the moment? We are obviously hoping that China will come to the | :04:24. | :04:27. | |
rest you for many countries, including Australia. Is that a | :04:28. | :04:34. | |
realistic? Are you worried about China's economy? We take China as it | :04:35. | :04:38. | |
is. There has clearly been a slowdown in growth, from being plus | :04:39. | :04:42. | |
seven to below 7%, but the fact remains that China is still growing. | :04:43. | :04:47. | |
When you consider the gross between six and 7% today on the size of the | :04:48. | :04:54. | |
Chinese economy, it's probably the equivalent of up to 13% one decade | :04:55. | :04:58. | |
ago. We are still talking about a lot of growth from China. Plus we | :04:59. | :05:02. | |
are seeing the rebalancing and transition in the Chinese economy | :05:03. | :05:07. | |
towards consumption, which aligns very nicely with Australia's | :05:08. | :05:11. | |
interest. Is it possible that the state owned enterprises are being | :05:12. | :05:17. | |
loaded up with debt, so many deals are coming out this week and this | :05:18. | :05:24. | |
could be short lived if it comes back to haunt these companies? We | :05:25. | :05:28. | |
think that the Chinese Government will be able to manage the Chinese | :05:29. | :05:32. | |
economy and that China will be able to continue to expand and grow. | :05:33. | :05:37. | |
Talking about the deals with Australia, how would you measure a | :05:38. | :05:43. | |
successful China-Australia week? What could this week bring in terms | :05:44. | :05:49. | |
of investment? In 2014, when we did something similar, we saw from | :05:50. | :05:53. | |
delegates that they attributed about 1 billion extra dollars of export | :05:54. | :05:58. | |
sales to Australia and about $3 billion of extra investment. I would | :05:59. | :06:05. | |
expect to see similar numbers. We want to create the right environment | :06:06. | :06:11. | |
that businesses and people need to be able to thrive. Thank you very | :06:12. | :06:15. | |
much. High hopes for the China- Australia week. We will be covering | :06:16. | :06:19. | |
that in its various stages, culminating in two very large | :06:20. | :06:23. | |
banquets on Thursday and Friday when Australia's Prime Minister will be | :06:24. | :06:26. | |
meeting with China's top two leaders. | :06:27. | :06:35. | |
The World Bank says the demand for loans is increasing. International | :06:36. | :06:41. | |
lenders say that loans are attracting about 43 billion US | :06:42. | :06:45. | |
dollars in the current financial year, bringing the total for the | :06:46. | :06:50. | |
last four years to more than 150 billion US dollars. The | :06:51. | :06:54. | |
International bank for Reconstruction and redevelopment | :06:55. | :06:58. | |
will exceed more than $25 billion in loans in 2016. Rice is a staple for | :06:59. | :07:04. | |
millions of people around the world, but for some, the race itself is | :07:05. | :07:12. | |
virtually their only food, leaving them lacking essential nutrients. It | :07:13. | :07:18. | |
is acute in many countries. It is being highlighted as a problem among | :07:19. | :07:21. | |
many migrant construction workers in Singapore. | :07:22. | :07:28. | |
Singapore's migrant construction workers are building one of the most | :07:29. | :07:32. | |
advanced cities in the world. This is what keeps them going. According | :07:33. | :07:39. | |
to the social enterprise, a typical migrant worker consumes over one and | :07:40. | :07:48. | |
a half kilos of cooked rice one day, but little else. A little bit of | :07:49. | :07:51. | |
curry and chicken, normally this large amount of rice doesn't have | :07:52. | :07:57. | |
other nutritional food around it. It is a carb diet, meaning they do get | :07:58. | :08:02. | |
the nutrition they need, especially for workers doing their daily | :08:03. | :08:06. | |
business. They work from 7am to 8pm, and this is arduous work. Workers | :08:07. | :08:21. | |
pay around one US dollar a meal. It fills them up, but lacks essential | :08:22. | :08:30. | |
items and minerals, which nutrition experts say leads to a form of | :08:31. | :08:35. | |
malnutrition called hiding hunger. So they are fortifying rice with all | :08:36. | :08:38. | |
the ingredients that needs to make it a more balanced meal. Very often | :08:39. | :08:47. | |
when you have rice at the start of your diet, you might feel less | :08:48. | :08:52. | |
productive or energetic, you might even feel sick. You would feel less | :08:53. | :08:56. | |
healthy in general. It would be great if they could eat more food | :08:57. | :09:01. | |
and have a more balanced diet, however that is not likely. It is | :09:02. | :09:05. | |
very simple and cost-effective to add vitamin C this rice. The race is | :09:06. | :09:11. | |
being trialled on a small group of migrant workers. Can you taste the | :09:12. | :09:17. | |
difference? Yes. It is nicer to taste. By the middle of this year, | :09:18. | :09:29. | |
fortified Rice said they would like to be providing this special rice to | :09:30. | :09:36. | |
as many as 30,000 construction workers. Within a few years, they | :09:37. | :09:40. | |
are hoping to be able to feed the entire foreign construction worker | :09:41. | :09:42. | |
population of more than 300,000 people. While enriched rice is more | :09:43. | :09:49. | |
expensive, they say they would not be passing on the extra cost to | :09:50. | :09:53. | |
workers. They will be arranging their own delivery. Before we go, | :09:54. | :10:01. | |
let's take a look at Asian market action in early trade. You can see | :10:02. | :10:07. | |
right now, they are marginally higher. That is due to the rise in | :10:08. | :10:14. | |
oil prices and commodities. That is despite Wall Street stocks finishing | :10:15. | :10:16. | |
modestly lower overnight. Thank you for investing your time | :10:17. | :10:30. | |
with | :10:31. | :10:31. |