04/10/2011 World Business Report

from the tragedy. -- the authorities have out.

Now we bring you the latest financial news with World Business

Report. Tighten up on austerity, Greece is

told to make yet more savings. In the spotlight. The new man in

charge at Apple gets ready for his first corporate launch as boss.

China is warning the US it is risking a trade war if the

Americans impose duties on countries that undervalued their

currencies. A lengthy meeting in Luxembourg of

finance ministers ended with a call for Greece to take yet more

austerity action on top of the 28 billion euros package agreed over

the summer. It comes one day after the Greek government admitted it

would not meet the deficit target set by the IMF and Europe. The head

of the Eurogroup insisted that there would not be a default.

had nobody advocating a default for Greece. Everything will be done to

avoid that and it will be avoided and nobody was advocating an exit

of Greece out of the Euro area. I firmly denied all of these rumours

indicating that Greece could decide to leave the euro area. I have just

firmly deny or rumours concerning any kind of a Greek default.

Asian markets have had the first chance to react to those words

coming from the head of the Eurogroup. The Nikkei is off by

1.5%. Further down you can see the South Korean market down by almost

5%. But remember the Kospi was closed on Monday because of a

holiday. A quick glance at the currencies there. You can see the

dollar against the euro. I am joined by the head of research

at HSBC. Let's talk about the meeting yesterday. Has anything

changed as a result of that? There were some soothing words about no

default. It's it's soothing words of course, but the fact they have

not pushed through the package they were expecting he is a bit of a

concern. But I think the biggest problem is that growth is worse

than expected. The budget deficit is going up. They're looking for

Greece to do more. They're talking about more private sector

involvement. Remember the original 159 billion package. 50 billion of

that came from the private sector. Do you get the sense that in the

last 24 hours or so... We have heard about the Franco-Belgian bank

having meetings because they're worried. Do we get the sense there

is a banking crisis? We had a banking crisis in 2008 and that

back was one of the first to be rescued. There are definitely

stresses on the banks. We seek access to US dollar funding has

been difficult. Banks want to lend to each other so much if they are

worried about whether the other bank will be able to pay back the

money. We have had this crisis before. The governments and policy

makers are wet and are stepping in quickly. -- they are aware.

Generally speaking do you expect the markets to tread water until we

get to the next to deadlines? talking about the middle of October

when we should hear about the lion and the summit in the middle of

November. It's there are a whole lot of dates that are important. We

have got a few governments left to vote on the rescue fund to push

that through, these 440 billion escrow fund. -- rescue fund. This

will continue for some time to come. The markets will remain very

nervous. We will talk more about these data.

The new boss of Apple, Tim Cook, announces his first launch later

today. He replaced Steve Jobs, who resigned in August because of his

help. Investors will be looking for signs he can keep up the company's

reputation and his position as the world's biggest company by market

capitalisation. A lot has happened since this, the very first iPhone,

which was launched four years ago. Now Apple is preparing to launch

version five, but it will do so without its charismatic leader, who

has been replaced by his right-hand man, Tim Cook. Tim Cook's greatest

strength is that he is very focused and he understands what makes the

company special. He understands the products must be at a higher

quality. He is also extremely skilled in operations. Tim Cook has

been running Apple on a day-to-day basis for years and took the reins

when Steve Jobs was taken -- talk medical leave.

So far Wall Street seems unfazed by the change at the top of Apple.

Steve Jobs resigned in August and since then the share price has gone

up a little but come back down and it looks pretty unchanged under Tim

Cook. This Apple shareholder says the company's share price has been

positive. It is terrific this year compared to anything else. Apple's

prospects for the long-term are excellent. It is the world's best

consumer franchise determined. is one of the most valuable

companies on the planet but it faces it -- increasing competition.

Tim Cook must maintain Apple's consumer appeal and premium prices

in a world after Steve Jobs. China's central bank says the US is

risking a trade war with a new deal being discussed in the Senate.

Let's go to Rico Hizon in the Singapore office. This is heating

up now, isn't it? Absolutely. Beijing is not taking the

initiative by US senators lightly. They are currently going on the

offensive. The Foreign Ministry in a statement adamantly opposed the

bill and warned that Americans must not politicise the issue. The

legislation, it signed into law by the President, will allow the US to

impose duties on countries that are undervalued their currencies. China

says the Americans are using this issue as an excuse to adopt

perfectionist trade measures that violate global trading rules. They

also repeated their position that they will gradually reform currency

policy by strengthening the flexibility of their exchange rate.

Over the years Beijing has always denied claims that undervaluing the

yuan is a bad thing. It is tit-for- tat between the Americans and the

Chinese. We will talk about that more later.

Reports that American Airlines is close to bankruptcy sent its shares

plunging on Wall Street. They were down by 41% at one point. They

closed 33% lower. A spokesman for the career acknowledged the

speculation that said restructuring was not its coal and preference and

the company was aware it needed to improve its results.

Some good news from a major US carmakers. Chrysler saw sales more

-- saw sales acts rise by more than one quarter. That's the boss of

General Motors says it shows the United States has avoided a double-