28/09/2016 Asia Business Report

party. At the annual conference he wants to give extra cash to

communities that have been affected Friday immigration. Next we have the

Asian business report. The Mac accessing the Internet with

India. We look at Google's push. Holidays, Halla will holidays,

businesses are springing up dedicated to Muslim travellers and

their needs. Good morning, Asia. Hello world. It is Wednesday. Glad

you could join us for this midweek edition. The Wall's biggest

technology giants are rushing to connect the population of India to

the Internet and by default attract their next 1 billion users. Google,

for example, is offering free Wi-Fi services at around 2000 train

stations. The project has been making progress. Ugle has seen

50,000 new users access the Internet every day. We have the details from

Delhi. It is all about big numbers and for Google that means a market

in India with huge potential. We already have about 350 million

people online and Google estimates that that number could double in the

next four years. It will not be easy. More than half the population

of India still can not access the Internet and that is what Google is

trying to tackle. It hopes to do so by setting up Wi-Fi hotspots in

places where a lot of people pass by. Bus stops, universities,

shopping more than trains and stations. For the average Indian

user, coverage and signal strength are hurdles. Google plans to adapt

its apps to better suit the market. The venture was fiercely opposed and

eventually shot down with critics saying it would restrict access to a

variety of providers and sources on the Internet. Companies like Google

and Facebook still do not have the answers to the bigger problem with

Internet in India- users you want cheap devices and cheaper data. The

possibilities in a market like India are endless. Technology companies

say by building products for users here they are preparing for how the

world will use technology in the next few years. It was once the

leader in sporting brands but now it is facing some tough competition.

Despite posting a profit, they are below market expectations sending

shares down 4%. In fact, Nike has lost some 13% in the year today due

to competition from other sporting apparel companies. Earlier we spoke

to a sportswear and Alice from Chicago and asked if the sportswear

label can stay on top. There are success stories from underarm in

basketball and Adidas in shoes. They are gaining but it does not mean

that Nikkei is losing ground. An interesting thing about Nike and

sportswear and footwear is that there is a lot of growth to come in

the future from China and other emerging markets. That is a bigger

question for the company and for consumers in general. Why is greater

China and emerging Asian economies a bright spot for Nike when, in China,

they have to go against internal companies? That is another good

question. In China what I am seeing is that Asian consumers want the

real McCoy. They are very sensitive to brand. They want Adidas for what

Adidas is good at. And, in basketball, for example, they want

Nike. There are potential new consumers coming into the middle

class but the existing consumers see Nike is a different town. I don't

see the local competitors as being in the same market. Sportswear

analyst from Chicago. The WTO has cut its forecast for global trade

growth this year by more than one third and it also warned that things

could get worse. Here is more on this latest report. The WTO says for

the first time in 15 years global trade is glowing at a slower pace

than the world economy. It now expects an expansion of nearly 1.7%

this year. This compares to a forecast for global economic growth

of 2.2%. Among the factors causing the drag of the week economic

performances of Brazil and China. But the WTO is also widening that

antitrade sentiment such as that which featured heavily in Monday's

presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump and in

protests in Europe could make matters worse. Especially if it

begins to symbolise a broader backlash against globalisation. If

you follow economic data closely but you may have noticed that the great

figures of Japan get revised upward down significantly. Sometimes the

initial figures may suggest a strong economy but later it will show it

was an expansion. The government is trying to address this issue at the

first meeting of the newly set up study group explains today. I spoke

earlier with a Japanese economist and I asked him for the reasons

behind the revisions. One reason is that Japan's fiscal strategy is

understaffed and some of the early data is not very reliable. For

example, private consumption figures are based on a household survey

which is based on numbers that switch from ten to 20% every month.

That does not make sense because it is based on rent which should be

stable. If the government doing the right thing by coming up with this

study research group to come up with ways and means to make this economic

numbers credible and to the point rather than seeing, you know, wild

swings over one or two months? It is a good start. The problem has been

going for a long time so it is about time that they addressed it. The

study group, of course, is nice but we will of course have to wait and

see what exactly they will do and which part of the data will change

to make the more reliable. And what part of the data should they change?

As I said, the household spending data is one problem. The biggest

revision occurred to the investments spending data. At first reading the

data is not available you need to prioritise that. The number of

Muslim travellers is growing faster indeed. Was on trips are estimated

to be worth $145 billion and it is growing 50% faster than the rest of

the global tourism industry. So Muslim friendly destinations are

huge is on us. We spoke to the co-founder of a motion start-up

which does just that. We have state-of-the-art travel for Muslim

travellers. We focus a lot on reviews, content, more slum related

content. When I was in university I went to many different countries and

many different places and I think along the way you tend to realise

that there is a huge opportunity for travel sections specifically

dedicated for Muslim travellers. Every single company wants to

venture into this specific area but nobody had taken the leap to do

that. I think it is sort of like the last frontier. A few years ago you

had China and this is like China. A much larger scale, however. It is

difficult to start something when nobody has done so before so we

started talking to the hotels and we started to talk to travel

stakeholders and we would come up with the concept of Tripfez. Good

afternoon and welcome. You highlight the amenities for Muslim travellers.

We have a draw in here with an arrow showing the direction of Mecca, a

prayer mat and a poor run. So when they go to a specific hotel they

will know whether or not this hotel has high while food and whether you

can take the alcohol away from the minibar, where the nearest Halal

restaurant is. It is a way to help them on their travel. More and more

young Muslims have dispersed to go to places beyond their comfort zone.

This is like Bhutan or South Korea or Japan which, traditionally, is

very scary for Muslims travellers because you will never find Halal to

bear. But nowadays people want to be more adventurous and they want to

post an Instagram that I was in Bhutan having food on top of a

mountain. Currently we have 50,000 hotels worldwide and we are growing

at eight rate of four to 500 hotels a day. Within a year we hope to

reach 100,000. That covers about 8% of the world's hotels. We started

off in Malaysia and being in Malaysia our focus was on Southeast

Asia built within the next six months we want to expand our reach

to the Middle East and South Asia. I think there is a huge population

within this specific area who are more slum and who want to travel for

Muslim way. Before we go, here is a look at the currency markets. Mixed

despite gains on Wall Street overnight. The Nikkei is down due to

the strength of the yen against the US dollar. Goodbye for now.

The operator of Alton Towers has been fined ?5 million after

admitting health and safety failings which led