14/10/2016 Asia Business Report

goods giant Unilever is over. -- Brexit. That is the brand behind

things like Marmite. Now for the latest business news

in Asia Business Report. In Thailand, the nation mourns. We

look at the legacy of the world's longest serving monarch. King

Bhumibol Adulyadej was revered for anchoring Thailand through our

people and helping the poor. What will his passing mean for the

politically volatile country? Hello and welcome to

Asia Business Report. Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej

was revered as the father of the nation. We PGATA role died on

Thursday after years of illness. -- and 88-year-old. He was the world's

longest serving monarch and many Thais have not lived under any other

monarch. Outpourings of grief have taken place across the country and

there are worries about the country's economy. The Prime

Minister urged the people to be vigilant about potential security

threats and told the business community to remain calm.

TRANSLATION: For the economy, stock market, trade, and business sector,

please don't stop. Don't panic to buy or dump stock. I urge everybody

to maintain our country's financial security. That was Thailand's Prime

Minister. Earlier I asked about Thailand's economic prospects.

Thailand has been facing economic headwinds over the last couple of

years. Political uncertainty over the last couple of years has meant

foreign direct investment has fallen quite dramatically in the last two

years and the first half of this year was also relatively weak. So I

think the key will be restoring and there are some very bright spots in

the outlook for Thailand, if we look over the medium term. Probably the

most exciting thing at the moment in terms of the economy is that Chinese

tourism is booming. There are about 8 million Chinese tourists last

year, already about 10% of the GDP of Thailand. We saw the stock market

and the currency is hanging onto gains today, following the news of

the king's death, but they had been impacted by news of his

deteriorating health earlier this week. Do you expect further

volatility to there? Investors are always fearful of uncertainty and at

the moment I think both domestic investors and foreign investors are

likely to be quite wary about the near-term development is, so

therefore I would expect some volatility to continue. And against

about drop in which the US Fed is talking about a rate hike later this

year as well and that I think will affect other emerging market

currencies as well as the Thai currency. The Thai government has

announced one year of mourning following the king's death. What

impact might this have long-term, especially as they are already

urging people to tone down any festive or celebratory events? I

think I would expect to see that private consumption will soft and in

the last few months of this year. -- will soften. As people are no longer

willing to go to restaurants or do anything that involves any kind of

celebration. That will have a direct effect on private consumption and on

GDP, at least for the fourth quarter of this year. I think over the

medium term that will gradually fade away, but certainly in the near term

I would expect some softening in the growth outlook.

The smartphone fallout continues for Samsung. It has again slashed its

earnings forecasts, following the recall and the scrapping of its

flagship Galaxy Note 7 model. Samsung estimates that prices could

cost the company more than $3 billion in lost profits over the

next six months. The world's biggest handset maker is due to report its

latest earnings at the end of the month.

South Korea's troubled shipping company is planning to sell off

major businesses including its network or its Asia route. It is

hoping to rebuild the firm, which is heavily in debt. News of the sale

led to a 30% jump in Hanjin shares. Hewlett high card plans to cut up to

4000 jobs over the next three years as part of the restructuring plan.

It expects to record charges of up to $500 million.

Shares fell on news of the job cuts. Leaders from Brazil, Russia, India,

China and South Africa are gathering this weekend for a summit. It marks

the 15th anniversary of the original grouping of major emerging economies

and since then China has detonated, resilience in deep recession, Russia

and South Africa are floundering and India is the only remaining economic

star. A former Goldman Sachs chief executive first coined the acronym

BRIC and insist China's prospects are not so bleak. Even though China

has its own problems, China today is well ahead of where I thought it

would be, including in this decade. So even though China has slowed, it

hasn't buy as much as I thought. So when people say China is a real

disaster, actually for anyone who has looked at it 15 or 20 years ago

and new China would eventually slow down at one point, it isn't true at

all. It is actually coping with it better than people would have

thought. Before heading to go, China's president was in Cambodia,

which is banking on Beijing to help grow the economy. -- heading to Goa.

They are hoping to take advantage of falling rice prices. The Cambodian

government is asking Beijing for $300 million in emergency aid and

also wants to see more 2-way trade, hoping for a 25% increase from the

current levels, the $5 billion next year. One sector that is already

seen a boost from Chinese money is tourism and to keep it that is

coming the Cambodian government wants more businesses to accept the

use of the Chinese currency the yuan.

It is not local currency, not even the widely used US dollar. Visitors

can now use the Chinese yuan as the officially accepted currency. Many

in Cambodia's tourism sector this will be a way to further boost to

the growing ranks Chinese tourists. For almost 30 years the Cambodian

economy has been polarised alongside the Cambodian currency, at times are

changing and now a third currency, the Chinese yuan, is being widely

accepted within the tourism industry. The government recently

announced its new China ready strategy, an ambitious plan to

attract up to 2 million Chinese tourists annually by 2020, a

significant increase from the estimated 700,000 who are expected

to visit this year. Very happy and we welcomed the decision from the

government to actually facilitate the Chinese travel industry. We are

now heading to being able to use the currency and we believe the usage of

the currency will of course increase the number of visitors coming to

Cambodia. I found more and more Chinese people come to Cambodia for

travel and sightseeing, because it's a very beautiful place. It is

convenient for Chinese people to use the Chinese yuan when they travel.

More and more people are here, so if the currency yuan becomes useful

local people it's good for us. Chinese people come here a lot. For

this year we have the most Chinese tourists coming to Cambodia, so if

they come here they can -- we can earn more money. We are very

surprised that many Cambodians can say very good Chinese and this guy,

he has learnt Chinese for eight years. That's very awesome. With

entrance fees set to almost double here in 2017, some industry analysts

feel the lower budget to arrest and back Akers, the mainstay of the

tourism industry, may now look for a cheaper destination, but any slack

will likely be taken up the increasing numbers of Chinese

tourists. Now, if you are in the market for

learning a foreign language, this could be for you. Ed Cook is a

grandmaster of memory and can memorise a 1000 digit number in less

than an hour, would you believe? Using cognitive science and flash

cards he has set up a business called Memorise and it has about 12

million users online. It offers learning in 100 different languages.

He wants to shake up adult learning and believes anyone can do what he

can now do. In my late teens I became interested in memory

techniques, which work by using your imagination to make things

memorable, because we all remember things that are vivid, interesting,

fun or amusing and we take that fact and then use your imagination, you

take the information, make it memorable, and then get good at

remembering things. People always say I am a genius, and they say it

is about technique. That's where we started this company, to take the

techniques, you'll be into an app, cedar and have to learn the

techniques themselves, you can just have the experience and thereby

learn that which is weakly. And a look at the markets now. We are

seeing them flat, opening slightly higher for the Nikkei as well as the

All Ords. That's it for this addition of Asia Business Report.

Thanks for watching. This is BBC News. The top stories:

Thailand mourns the death of King Bhumibol Adulyadej. Tributes come in

from around the globe for the world's longest serving monarch.

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