19/04/2016 Asia Business Report

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

Steeling themselves for more bad news. The world steelmaker produces

Bale to stop the curve of production. And it is not the only

commodity that is heading south, with oil prices. Good morning Asia

and hello world. It is a Tuesday and I am glad that you could join us for

this edition of Asia Business Report. We start off with steel and

the world's major producers have failed to agree to measures that

will tackle global overproduction. It is cause a collapse in prices and

ministers and trade officials from over 30 countries met in Belgium to

tackle this issue. They concluded early that it had to be dealt with

in a swift and structural ways. What are the major sticking point. The

point of this day of talks was trying to agree an international

approach to tackling the crisis, which is affecting the steel

industry. Accommodation of overcapacity and falling demand has

caused prices to plummet and it has cost thousands of jobs across the

world. This is why representatives from 34 countries, between them,

represent more than 90% of the world's steel production and they've

met here in Brussels to seek a solution. There were hopes that they

would try to curb excess production. Things like limiting the role of

government in subsidising steelmaking facilities which

produced material beyond the market demand. But after a full day of

talks there is been no formal consensus and it is understood that

the Chinese delegation opposed any formal agreement. Officials from

China said that they recognise that this steel crisis was a global

problem which required a global solution. In China they were already

taking measures to curb excess production. The OECD's Deputy

Secretary General said they wanted more concrete measures but this was

a complex problem. The OECD will meet tomorrow to continue

discussion. The Chinese delegation has suggested that the mainland is

to blame for overproduction and the trade minister says that China may

be the world perfect largest producer but it is also the biggest

consumer. It as most of what the mainland produces is for the

domestic market and they have already been made to production

cuts. The Chinese government has a very firm resolve to deal with the

steel undercapacity challenge. We've already adopted powerful measures to

this and and I can say that we have already achieved good results. We

have already cut 90 million tons of production in the sector and the

government has set for the new target, according to which, in the

next five years we could reach capacity. That is only 10 million

times smaller than the total production capacity here in the

European Union. While still producing countries are blocking

head against the cuts, this world's second largest iron or or producer

are saying that the mines will produce between 330 -340 million

tons. That boasted an 11% hike in first-quarter shipments and

confirmed it is on track for a record 300 and in million tons in

2016. All prices have continued to fall when the world's leading

exporters failed to cut output. Will it continue? Earlier IRC is a senior

oil trader and said that it is not surprising that prices fell after

producers felt to produce an agreement. They could fall even

further. Generally when those expectations are met, we typically

see an unwind of the speculative position. We did see part of them

fall yesterday and that was primarily the reason for the big

sell-off. But they still labouring positions on the market that we

could lay their a further collapse. The bottom line is both that Russia

and Saudi Arabia, the main players in this week in negotiations,

running at near record levels already. That is correct. That was

on the trader 's minds as well. Would oil prices go to that specific

fact? Because it was particular high in production, it is unlikely that

the continuation of the oil rally was going to go forward. Bowl with

the depressed prices of oil, we just cannot blame the Saudi Arabians and

the negotiations have failed over the weekend. Those prices also fell

because of the production of the United States of Shell oil. Should

they have been included in the negotiations? That is a very sticky

point. I think it would be prudent to have the US capable of discussing

this difficult situation and bringing them on board because of

the geographic differences in the make-up differences of the countries

that produce Shell oil. It is of little bit difficult to get

everybody to the table. With no agreement between the Russians and

the Saudi Arabians, are negotiations over and done with? I think we're

going to continue hearing rhetoric that there is going to be some type

of agreement. I think based on that we're going to hear and see oil

prices confirmed over the short-term. Will not see huge

collapse in the price that there will be built at expectations that

some type of production freeze agreement and some other form... And

where is the floor of all prices down? I think that we can

conclusively say that they are 30 dollars. Despite the growing concern

for the appetite for making in Asia, and you survey has found that

there has been a shift in merger and acquisition strategy. In

Asia-Pacific companies prefer to buy locally with firms sticking to their

areas of expertise. Earlier I spoke with a man who was an expert based

in Beijing. She says that we could see more deals involving certain

company. Last year was a big deal for major deal. This year I expect

to see a continuation of deal flow but it will be a larger number of

deals and smaller deal sizes. Award is very interesting is that the

activity is centred around Asia-Pacific. Asia-Pacific is not

just consider to be an mergers and acquisition destination. We're

seeing Chinese bidders at the table, the continuation of Japanese, South

Koreans and as well as government companies in Malaysia and Singapore.

The identity of the bidder is changing and moving east. So which

particular sectors that these deals being made in? Globally we are

seeing it in the technology, energy and input of the sexes. --

infrastructure sectors. It is interesting when you consider where

is the inspiration for the less than. It is a destination for

mergers and acquisitions. Last year more than a thousand mobile phones

were launched in India and the vast majority of those smartphones with

some costing as little as $50. India is one of the fastest growing

markets in the world and unsurprisingly this is attracting

manufacturers in droves. Had as a consumer choose a product when there

is so much choice? I look for the camera, and the front

camera. I will go for the features as opposed to the price. If it works

for the price I will definitely use it.

I think software is the real differentiator. And that is why the

whole philosophy of us being able to deliver a new phone experience every

month, by the means of software update is

And before we got here is a quick look at the market and as you can

see there are simply gains in the Asian indices which are up by 3.3%.

The hand saying index is about to open in 50 minutes time. This is

after the Dow Jones finished up for