12/07/2016 Asia Business Report

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

Before the big split. Better expected quarterly earning.

And the alternative solution for trash. We look at technology that

converts waste into water. Good morning. Welcome to Asia

Business Report from Singapore. The world's if aluminium maker has

kicked off the earnings season in the US again with an -- and has

exceeded expectations. It posted revenues of $5.3 billion and net

income of $135 million, down slightly from one year earlier.

Shares were higher than more than 3% in after-hours trading. There has

been an upturn in the commodities market. The company is expected to

be split into two macro publicly traded businesses before the end of

the year. -- two. Earlier I asked whether this is a strong result.

Certainly when you look at its last result as a single company it was a

good one. We did see the company report nine US cents per share which

was broadly in line with the consensus. At where the market did

get surprise was that we saw revenues come in at 5.3 billion. So

they're -- there was some joy taken out of that. We have a look at the

results themselves they gained about $237 million from cost savings,

about $50 million from borrowing. So overall as you suggest the market

was very pleased with the result and I think one thing was that they

generated about $800 million worth of sales of the 1.2 yen dollars that

they are expecting and the market will like that figure as well. --

$1.2 billion. There is an airshow on this week in

south England, the biggest gathering of the deal for the global airspace

and defence industry. One country now storming into the market is

China. It has been developing cut-price arrivals to the airliners

and drones produced in the West. China wants to increase earnings

from aircraft building tenfold to $150 billion a year. How can it be

so hopeful? Let's have a look. Over the next few days at

Farnborough tens of millions of dollars of deals are expected to be

done, so we will review all of the latest from the trade show on BBC

News. Malnutrition is still a major

problem in India so it is perhaps surprising that many Indians are

actually overweight. In fact, obesity has become such a concern

that one state has now proposed a so-called fat tax on restaurants

that sell fast food to try to make people more health-conscious. But

some wonder if it is the best approach.

Grabbing your favourite pizza or biting into a burger is about to get

more expensive in this part of India. Terre la fans do impose a tax

on fast food sold by restaurant chains. -- Kerala. It's a so-called

fat tax. Something already tried in places, including Hungary and

Denmark, to try to put people off eating so much junk food. But

reactions have been mixed. When people are not taking care of their

health the government is taking some initiative, so that people go back

to the food that helps their diet. And diseases are just spreading

because of the junk food. I don't think it will do much. Because those

interested will still go after what they want. It doesn't matter. Kerala

has the second-highest level of obesity and the government is using

that reason to justify its plan to put an extra tax on restaurants like

McDonald's, dominoes and Pizza Hut. They say these other things making

people fat and they hope I prices will make think twice. But popular

local dishes, like banana fry, that are high in calories, will not come

under the new tax rule, which means some are seeing this as an attack on

multinational food chains, rather than just obesity or other

illnesses. The government has defended the plan, many food experts

think that taxing food is not the right approach. I don't think it is

right. It won't have any impact on the health status of people,

especially in Kerala. It will just fill the coppers of the government.

The emphasis should be on awareness. People should be made aware of off

the side-effects or bad effects of eating high calorie food. Whether it

is what they eat or a lifestyle that lacks exercise, one in five Indians

is now overweight or obese. But with access to Western-style fast food is

still relatively new here, and many still seeing it as a status symbol,

this is a new tax many will find hard to swallow.

From fat tax to food waste, because dealing with waste is a huge problem

around the world, especially acute in small countries like in

Singapore. Millions of tons of rubbish are disposed each year and

hundreds of thousands of tons of that is food waste. We have a look

at one initiative aimed at converting the waste to good use.

Singapore's most iconic resort is home to dozens of restaurants,

hundreds of hotel rooms, a casino, shops and a convention centre. And

all that means loads and loads of food waste. They won't say how much

food they think is thrown out here every day, but suffice to say it's a

lot. It is in -- in an effort to combat the problem it has installed

five food digesters, which are turning some of that waste into

water. Let's see how they work. We generate a lot of pre- consummate

Prep food waste because of the volumes we have. Last weekend we had

14 weddings and we were full house. 2600 rooms filled. Because of that

we can digests, or we have today just, up to 2500 kg every day of

clean, segregated food waste. All you have to do is segregated, we

then put it in a machine and it comes it inside. There are enzymes

and bacteria cocktail that digests of the food. -- the food. It is like

a giant, mechanical stomach and the other end comes grey water, or at

least it will be once the pulp has separated out of it. But elsewhere

in the city that technology is being taken a step further. The rapidly

growing company Eco-Wiz believes it has the edge. A number of items can

go in the system, so we use the biotechnology to decompose food

waste into sterile water and we have our own technology to turn the water

into reusable water. The water you can either use to water plants or

you can use it to rinse bins or even mop the floor. We have a customer

who uses our recycled water to mop their stall. But still the majority

of Singapore's hundreds of thousands of annual food waste is sent to

landfill and incinerated. And with clear implications for the

environment, the push is on for more companies to look for alternatives.

Let's have a look at the Asian markets this morning. Japan's Nikkei

is extending the game from Monday, when it rose by 4% because of that

landslide victory by the Prime Minister in parliamentary elections

and the promise of further stimulus. That's it for this edition of Asia

Business Report. Thanks for watching.

Angela Eagle, the former shadow business secretary,