Browse content similar to 31/01/2012. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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country. Those are the latest advice from | :00:02. | :00:09. | |
BBC World News. Now it is time for World Business Report. -- latest | :00:10. | :00:16. | |
headlines. Welcome to World Business Report. | :00:16. | :00:24. | |
The headlines: European leaders promised a more disciplined future, | :00:24. | :00:29. | |
but what will happen to Portugal? Weak results are expected from | :00:29. | :00:38. | |
Amazon as it fails to tap into new businesses. | :00:38. | :00:43. | |
European leaders who are keen to talk up their achievements but last | :00:43. | :00:47. | |
night's summit under the new treaty known as the fiscal compact, | :00:47. | :00:50. | |
countries will not be able to wriggle out of sanctions if they | :00:50. | :00:55. | |
run up big deficits. But that agreement does not help resolve | :00:55. | :01:00. | |
Europe's more pressing problems. Leaders discussed one of those | :01:00. | :01:04. | |
problems, Greece, late last night. There is still no agreement on | :01:04. | :01:08. | |
reducing its debt, although it is thought that could come by the end | :01:08. | :01:11. | |
of the week. Meanwhile, fresh fears about Portugal have emerged. Its | :01:11. | :01:15. | |
borrowing costs had soared, and there is concern it will have to go | :01:15. | :01:23. | |
through a painful reorganisation of its debt, similar to Greece. It is | :01:23. | :01:28. | |
the 16th summit in two years, they did agree on some things, but what | :01:28. | :01:33. | |
was missing? And well, of course, we did not get the final agreement | :01:33. | :01:38. | |
on Greece. That is the most obvious thing that was missing. They say it | :01:38. | :01:41. | |
will be here by the end of the week but these deadlines keep moving, | :01:41. | :01:45. | |
and they have still not sorted out the funding issue. I think that is | :01:45. | :01:53. | |
why Portuguese yields have risen, we have not settled for markets. | :01:53. | :01:58. | |
Really, I think it is that they're the implementation of the European | :01:58. | :02:02. | |
stability fund, but that is supposed to start in July, they are | :02:02. | :02:06. | |
not even talking about whether they have got enough adequate resources | :02:06. | :02:13. | |
and they won't start until the summit in March. This has giving | :02:13. | :02:16. | |
Europe a bit of time, but not enough. It is quite tricky, because | :02:17. | :02:20. | |
in terms of what is ahead for Greece, it is hard to know what is | :02:20. | :02:24. | |
around the corner. Portugal looks like it is coming back into the | :02:24. | :02:28. | |
forefront, certainly with its interest rates at 70% on ten-year | :02:28. | :02:33. | |
bonds. That is incredible, isn't it? There is a fear that they will | :02:33. | :02:38. | |
have to be a restructuring of Portuguese debt. We are just | :02:38. | :02:41. | |
getting Greece sorted out but now it looks like it will be Portugal. | :02:41. | :02:45. | |
So nobody wants to hold Portuguese debt, in fact, they want to sell | :02:45. | :02:52. | |
LED. We mentioned does two. We have not even look at Italy and Spain. | :02:52. | :02:57. | |
But in the meantime, at the end of February, the ECB is going to | :02:57. | :03:01. | |
auction money at a fairly cheap rate to balance again. There is a | :03:01. | :03:06. | |
lot of talk of whether there will be a huge take-up of that? Well, in | :03:06. | :03:11. | |
December when they did it, we had 489 billion euros taken up by the | :03:11. | :03:17. | |
banks. It is very cheap funding. But of course now they will all be | :03:17. | :03:23. | |
looking for more funding. One of the big problems is the banks in | :03:23. | :03:27. | |
Europe, and to whether they can be kept on track. They have got a lot | :03:27. | :03:35. | |
of exposure to the Sovereign's in Europe and bad debt. So looking for | :03:35. | :03:39. | |
more money to take up, in fact the expectation is that it could be | :03:39. | :03:44. | |
three times as much as last time. We will have to leave you there, | :03:44. | :03:48. | |
but we will talk some more about this when we look at the day's | :03:48. | :03:55. | |
newspapers. Amazon has been busy pushing into | :03:55. | :04:00. | |
new markets, but investors are concerned the expansion is coming | :04:00. | :04:04. | |
at the expense of profit. The world's largest internet retailer, | :04:04. | :04:08. | |
which reports its figures today, is expected to have made barely any | :04:08. | :04:13. | |
money in the final months of last year. | :04:13. | :04:17. | |
Amazon has transformed the way we buy books. Now it has set its | :04:17. | :04:20. | |
sights on the publishing end of things. Its goal is to publish | :04:20. | :04:25. | |
best-selling books by big-name authors. And, like local | :04:25. | :04:27. | |
booksellers before them, not everybody in the publishing world | :04:27. | :04:34. | |
is happy. Let me put it this way. Americans are devout capitalist. | :04:34. | :04:38. | |
And American capitalism is rooted in competition. If we only have one | :04:38. | :04:42. | |
entity, at the end of the day, not only selling the books but only one | :04:42. | :04:46. | |
entity making the books - well, what have we got them? No | :04:46. | :04:52. | |
competition. I feel that that is the death of the culture. These | :04:52. | :04:58. | |
days, Amazon's ambitions are not just limited to books. There is the | :04:58. | :05:01. | |
new kindled tablet, which is meant to be a portal to many of its new | :05:01. | :05:04. | |
services. As well as video streaming and cloud computing | :05:04. | :05:09. | |
services. But these ventures not only require lots of cash. But they | :05:09. | :05:13. | |
are also squeezing profit margins. This came to a head in October, | :05:13. | :05:17. | |
when Amazon want it could make a loss of as much as $200 million in | :05:17. | :05:23. | |
the final Mods of last year. That sent its share price down more than | :05:23. | :05:28. | |
10%, and it has continued to fall since then. This technology analyst | :05:28. | :05:33. | |
warns that some investors in Amazon are losing patience. They are | :05:33. | :05:37. | |
investing in tablets, mobile phones, and in content that does not | :05:37. | :05:42. | |
necessarily have a clear pale. So I think convincing investors why that | :05:42. | :05:48. | |
is important is a challenge for the company right now. And if holiday | :05:48. | :05:53. | |
sales of the Kindle Fire disappoint, Amazon will face even more | :05:53. | :05:57. | |
questions about its ability to make money. | :05:58. | :06:01. | |
Two Japanese auto parts companies have been dealt a hefty fine in the | :06:02. | :06:11. | |
:06:12. | :06:16. | ||
West for price fixing. Who is in trouble? Yazaki Corporation will be | :06:16. | :06:22. | |
paying 470 million US dollars, while Denso Corporation will be | :06:22. | :06:28. | |
paying about 80 million US dollars. There are also four Yazaki | :06:28. | :06:31. | |
Corporation executives serving two years each in the US prisons as | :06:31. | :06:37. | |
part of this plea bargain. According to the US Justice | :06:37. | :06:41. | |
Department, the companies sold parts in Canada, Japan, the US and | :06:41. | :06:45. | |
Europe at inflated prices over a decade. At this point it is not | :06:45. | :06:49. | |
immediately clear how many auto makers are could -- are affected by | :06:49. | :06:57. | |
this conspiracy. Nor is it clear how inflated the price is worth. | :06:57. | :07:01. | |
The charges are part of an ongoing federal anti-trust investigation in | :07:01. | :07:05. | |
the US into beat Reading, price- fixing and other anti-competitive | :07:05. | :07:08. | |
conduct in the Auto parts industry in the United States. So it is an | :07:08. | :07:14. | |
ongoing investigation. Let's look at Honda and to she but now, both | :07:14. | :07:22. | |
are coming out with their earnings in about an hour. What is expected? | :07:22. | :07:27. | |
Well, numbers are expected to look die out for two of Japan's leading | :07:27. | :07:31. | |
companies. Honda is forecast to unveil a double-digit profit | :07:31. | :07:37. | |
dropped during the October-December quarter, and the forecast is for an | :07:37. | :07:43. | |
even larger fault for full year earnings, which ends this March. -- | :07:43. | :07:47. | |
larger fall. The company has it been hit by a range of issues, | :07:47. | :07:53. | |
ranging from the Japanese tsunami to be floods in Thailand. As for | :07:53. | :07:58. | |
Toshiba, it is forecasting a 10% fall in profit for the financial | :07:58. | :08:03. | |
year ending in March, compared with a previously expected 25% gain. | :08:03. | :08:07. | |
Falling sales of LCD television sets, this demand for their memory | :08:07. | :08:13. | |
chips, the appreciating yen and the effect of the Thailand floods have | :08:13. | :08:22. | |
had a big drag on the profitability of the electronics giant. | :08:22. | :08:28. | |
Let's take a look at some of the stories in the news today. British | :08:28. | :08:31. | |
computer chip company to sign up armed is expected to report a surge | :08:31. | :08:36. | |
in fourth-quarter profits. Its technology is found in mobile | :08:36. | :08:39. | |
phones, washing machines and digital televisions. It is a big | :08:39. | :08:45. | |
day for results in the pharmaceuticals industry. Both | :08:45. | :08:53. | |
Pfizer and Eli Lilly are due to update us of what they're doing. | :08:53. | :09:02. | |
And Exxon Mobil will is releasing its quarterly results. | :09:02. | :09:07. | |
Markets today are slightly up. They are seemingly powering ahead | :09:07. | :09:10. | |
despite the lack of visibility about what is going on the increase | :09:11. | :09:15. | |
as far as debt restructuring is concerned. Fears about the future | :09:15. | :09:25. | |
:09:25. | :09:33. | ||
of Portugal also do not seem to be having an effect as yet. Of course | :09:33. | :09:37. | |
there is a lot of sensitivity about the breach structuring in Greece | :09:37. | :09:47. | |
:09:47. | :09:48. |