23/05/2016 Asia Business Report

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

On the sidelines of the G7 meeting the Japanese central bank chief

talks about how an exit from the EU with Britain could in fact world

trade. And from Sydney to London, can you believe it? Hypersonic

flights might become reality. Welcome to Asia Business Report. The

Japanese central bank governor told the BBC a UK exit from the EU would

be a major risk to global growth. In the same interview he also defended

his controversial negative interest rate policy. He was speaking with

our correspondent on the sidelines of the G7 meetings in Japan. Of

course, it is up to British people to decide whether or not to exit

from the EU. But certainly, the latest T20 communique, or IMF

analysis showed that this could be potentially quite serious -- G20. If

a breeze it is agreed, it would have a significant impact. What about on

Japan's economy? I am afraid through trade or in general the global

economy, including Japan, the US or other economies would be affected,

but as I said the decision is up to the British people to decide. The

implementation of negative interest rates in January took everyone by

surprise. When do you think it will start to IMPAC Japan's economy and

what if it doesn't, what options do you have? -- impact. You will know

that we announced in January, and implemented this new policy midyear

February, we are still in early May. So although the impact on the

financial market is quite clear, and already made, but impact on the real

economy and the prices will take some more time. Is the ammunition

running out, and what options do central banks have come a given

these controversial monetary policy tools don't appear to be working any

more? --, given these... In the US, the eurozone as well is Japan, I

Singh Mann a trip policy has been making significant impact on the

economy -- I think monetary policy. In that sense, monetary policy has

worked. I don't think not just Japan, or even the ECB, I don't

think at this stage monetary policy has reached the limit, I don't think

so. Still we have enough room to further these monetary conditions.

Of the Japanese central bank chief. Staying with Japan, latest data this

morning showed a drop in demand for Japanese goods with exports falling

10% in April compared with last year -- The Japenese. The slowdown is due

to sluggish -- The Japenese. The slowdown is due

to demand from China. Imports plunged 23% in April. The detainees

trade balance is at a surplus of $7.5 billion. -- Japanese. Indian

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has arrived in for the first time in a

decade to strengthen ties following the end of a most -- and most of the

sanctions. Talks with the President are expected to focus on plans to

develop the southern port. India is investing in the project which could

boost trade between India, Iran and Afghanistan, bypassing Pakistan.

Ensure an group Axa is selling its investments in tobacco -- Insurance

group. As one of the big institutional investors, to make

such a move, Axa says it will sell bonds worth $2 billion. Here is the

incoming CEO. Axa is announcing to divest from its tobacco

investments. The reason is a very simple one. We are a large provider

of healthcare insurance and what we have seen more and more is obviously

chronic diseases cost a lot of money and we need to invest more in

prevention in order to prevent those chronic diseases, and we want to

really support that and not invest in tobacco, which creates more

chronic diseases. Imagine flying from Sydney all the way to London in

just two hours. Scientists are working on technology that could

make such hypersonic flight a reality. They have successfully

flown this rocket at 7.5 times the speed of sound, and it is led by the

Australian government. Earlier I spoke with the chief defence

scientist and asked about the latest on the project. Hypersonic flight is

when you move at greater than mach five and five times the speed of

sound. We are investigating flight faster than that. In theory you

should be able to then be able to fly from Sydney to London in a

couple of hours. However, if we do look at where commercial flight,

which has been done at supersonic speed, like the Concorde, it is a

tough commercial market. It does take some years to develop. We think

that initially the applications will not necessarily be in human

transportation but maybe in other things such as... You have mentioned

Concorde. I was going to bring it up. It was retired and long time

ago. It was too costly to run. It would suggest that perhaps getting

somewhere quickly isn't really a priority. Yes. I think people would

like to get somewhere quickly. Even if you get there quickly you still

have jetlag. That is true. I am suffering from that now. There are

other applications to this. It won't be applied to commercial flights

yet. It might not be transporting people. Who will transport? Military

applications are here? There would be military applications. The

fastest planes we have seen in the military sense have been mach two or

three, such as the SR71, so there could be applications in that sense

to build very fast fighter jets potentially. But there is also the

application in missiles, potentially, for defence purposes,

and I think there is also a more near-term application of launching

satellites. Cyber security might be a threat for every government and

company around the world, but what is the chance of a truly

catastrophic attack which could cause global havoc, and who is

responsible for stopping the attacks, the government or private

enterprise? One of the world's top cyber security expert and former

Obama Administration adviser Jonathan Reeder says the private

sector must step up and I asked him the biggest concern for the US. This

thing we are worried about is destructive attacks on critical

infrastructure -- Reiber. That is from security planning standpoint.

There are other important things, like theft, but if you focus on

destructive attack capability, we have seen examples where state and

nonstate groups have done those things. Notable example in 2012, a

hostel actor destroyed 30,000 hard drives for one of the largest oil

companies in the world, Al making us revert to faxing and tight writing

to continue business. -- making us. It could have perhaps altered

production. Those kinds of attacks, if you assume that could happen in a

conflict, there would be no holds barred we are looking at more

potential destructive capabilities -- typewriting. You were the author

of the US department of defence cyber strategy in 2015. Do you think

the onus is on governments to solve the issue? That is a good question.

Government and private sector have to work closely together. The

private sector can block 90% of the incidents which could happen in

cyberspace by making basic security investments. That is one example. In

one destructive attack in the last couple of years the company had all

passwords in a folder marked passwords. To access the system the

password was password. Private sector companies leave themselves

open when they do that. That is not OK. Private sector can raise the

level of defence significantly. Instances when the private sector

and government want to work together is an important area. One

recommendation two countries I make is to have a mechanism for

communicating between public and private sectors. That includes

sharing information about threats and developing solutions. That ends

this edition of Asia Business Report. Thanks for watching.

The top stories this hour: President Obama has begun a visit to

Vietnam aimed at strengthening defence and economic ties.

The Vietnamese government is hoping that Mr Obama will announce

the lifting of the partial US arms embargo.

The result of Austria's presidential election is too close to call.