22/09/2016 Asia Business Report

The top story: After North Korea's latest nuclear test, a warning from

the Japanese Prime Minister. Speaking at the UN, Shinzo Abe

demanded the world find new ways to stop the threat from Kim Jong-un's

regime. The American Secretary of State

calls for a no-fly zone to be imposed over key areas of Syria,

amid entrench divisions at the UN Security Council over who is

responsible for the collapse of the recent ceasefire.

And this story is trending online. Madame Tussaud's's Museum in London

has wasted no time in separating the wax work models of Angelina Jolie

and Brad Pitt. It moved them apart within hours of the news that the

couple had filed for divorce. That's it from me. More to come on BBC

World News. The top story in the UK: Jeremy

Corbyn says he wants to wipe the slate clean if he retains his vision

as Labour leader. Voting has closed. The result will be due on Saturday.

Now it is time for Asia Business Report.

The Federal Reserve stands back, but will the Reserve Bank give any clues

about when it will raise interest rates?

Where rubber meet the road. Efforts to reduce HIV among truck drivers in

India. Good morning! Hello, world. Glad you

could join us for this edition of Asia Business Report. I'm Rico

Hizon. Also ahead, we will speak to the chief executive of a company,

regarding the latest report on milk prices. In the US, America's central

bank has decided now is not the time. The Fed failed to move on

interest rates for a sixth straight meeting and this follows a similar

decision by the bank of Japan. The bed is hinting that there are still

could be a rise at the end of the year.

More from Washington. The US Federal Reserve has decided to hold off

against raising interest rates this month. But it wasn't an easy

decision. Over two days members of the community debated and the -- of

the ten voting members three voted in favour of a rate rise this month.

This kind of division among members of the Federal Reserve is especially

rare as they like to present a unanimous front. While the case for

a rate rise is really strengthening, the chair of the US Federal Reserve,

Janet Yellen, really wants to see the economy doing better before

making the move. The labour market is strengthening, but inflation

remains just a little too low to take action. And going forward the

Federal Reserve believes the US economy will still grow, but at a

slightly slower pace than they had anticipated at the beginning of this

year. So the question is, if not now, when? The Fed hints and rate

rise could come at the end of this year, but there are two meetings

left, one of which comes within days of the US presidential election.

This leaves December as the Fed's last chance for pretty 16. -- 2016.

Will this decision is that the central bank decisions in the

Philippines and Indonesia, which meet later today? I put that

question to an Asian economist with HSBC. We expect a cut in Indonesia

and we expect the Philippines to remain on hold. These are two

economies that are probably among the strongest in Asia right now, but

are facing very different liquidity conditions domestically. In

Indonesia, while sentiment is positive we see inflows from foreign

investors and from Indonesians, as they have the tax amnesty. But

generally bank Indonesia wants to increase growth, and liquidity in

the domestic economy at a rate cut will do the trick for that, we see

Ben Cutting today. In the case of the Philippines, the liquidity is

very robust right now and domestic growth will actually accelerate over

the coming quarter, we think on the back of increased infrastructure and

investment and fiscal spending by the government. Speaking of policy

decisions, New Zealand's central bank decided to hold fire on

increasing interest rates. The reserve bank of New Zealand met

benchmark borrowing costs at 2%, which was widely expected. Shares

for the world's biggest dairy exporter are rising after it posted

a strong earnings report card. Full-year debility jumping 65% to

$613 million after low milk prices boosted sales of products like

cheese and baby formula. For more, we are joined by Fonterra's chief

executives. Thank you so much for joining us on Asia Business Report.

You made money, up 65%, but farmers are still complaining of low

pay-outs for their milk products. However you reconcile this? Good

morning. -- how do you. We have to look at a couple of different

things. The results of 2016, on the back of low commodity prices, but we

have to link that back to commodity prices across the board in the

world, which were low. The interest rates in New Zealand goes against

us. But the results have been good. In the meantime, the milk price is

rising, so we have announced the price yesterday and we keep our

earnings strong on top of that, so for 17 it looks very strong. Last

year was a difficult year for our farmers, with and understandable low

level. At $5.25 per kilogram, this is the breakeven point for many

farmers, so this is good news for them. Do you see this increasing in

the near to medium term? What you see around the world is that the

supply pools, the regions which can supply, are down in terms of

production. We are down, Australia and Europe are down, so I do see an

upward trend, because China is back in the market and demanding more

products, so we have definitely seen this turnaround and in my opinion it

will continue. What about the strong Kiwi dollar? It is stubbornly high

and of course today the reserve bank of New Zealand decided to hold on

the cost of borrowing, which is a big disappointment because a cut

could have weakened further the New Zealand dollar against the US

dollar. That's right. And for us as an exporting company, 95% exports,

that would be good and for our farmers it would be very good,

because in 1's -- because one cent in Kiwi dollars is a significant

pay-out for the farmers. Thank you very much. Fonterra's chief

executive joining us from Auckland. The downturn in dairy prices has

helped a lot of people in moving to the technology sector and Apple was

slapped with a 14.5 billion dollars tax bill, the largest ever tax

penalty for a US technology company. We spoke to the EU's competition

commissioner, who says there is no reason for the US to see these

actions as protectionist. For us it is very much a competition case,

because we have this third competition instrument. First

would-be merger controls, second would-be anti-trust that we share

with the US. But we have this third tool to secure fair competition in

the lower paying -- paying field. They don't have this concept in the

States and I think that's why it is so foreign for them and that's why

we are getting this pushback. You've announced three cases, anti-trust,

against Google. What are they about? It comes down to us finding what we

think is the evidence that Google is using is already -- it's already

very dominant position to stay dominant or become even more

important in neighbouring markets. It was the EU's cop edition

commission are speaking earlier to us. In India it is estimated that 2

billion lorry drivers regularly use prostitutes, but barely 10% of them

use condom is. Health officials say there is a strong correlation

between HIV infections and the routes used by truckers. To raise

awareness, lorry feed condoms are being sold. They have been designed

to replicate the designs of India's trucks and 45,000 packets have sold

out of this in just a few days. These truck drivers are not getting

proper medical health services on the national highway and are more

susceptible to HIV infection because of their interaction with female sex

workers. With that we end this edition of

Asia Business Report. Thank you for investing your time with us. Or buy

for now. The top stories this hour:

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has demanded that the world finds

new ways to stop the nuclear And a war of words has broken out

at the United Nations between the US and Russia,

after Monday's destruction Could having a tattoo stop

you getting the job you want? Employers are being warned

they could be missing out on the best candidates

if they aren't more open-minded. They divide opinion,

but nearly 20% of UK adults Mostly they're not as extreme

as the man known as the King of Inkland, who says his body art

saw him moved at work. The manager pulled me

to one side and said, we can't really have

you in the middle of the office So I got re-shunted to the back

of the office, right where the manager sits,

so she could keep a beady eye on me. It's not illegal for employers

to discriminate against people But a report today says companies

are missing out on talented You can't just point-blank say no

to tattoos, we tattoo a lot of people from a lot

of different industries. Police and everything, you know,

all over, get tattoos. It's part of English

culture these days. Annie is one of several people

at this Leeds solicitors But she was careful

about where she put them. I wanted to think about where

I was going to position them, so I've got two on my back

and one of my foot. And I decided there so they wouldn't

be seen in a working environment Her boss Chris says he's not

bothered about tattoos, but the line has to

be drawn somewhere. You'd have to draw a line, I think,

in the business we're in, in a relatively conservative

industry, with tattoos on the face. I've been told by my daughter

that now you can get But if she ever got one,

I probably wouldn't speak Broadcaster David Dimbleby had one

done at the age of 75. They are becoming far more

socially acceptable, but employers are within their

rights to say they don't And to prove the point,

the Madame Tussaud's museum in London has confirmed that it has

officially separated the waxwork models of Angelina

Jolie and Brad Pitt. are divorcing after

12 years together. Within hours, stadd

at Madame Tussaud's got to work to ensure the couple's split

was evident in the museum. More on all of the stories at the

BBC