16/05/2013 World Business Report

latest headlines from BBC News. Now for the latest financial news with

Sally Bundock and World Business Japan's growth surges as the

government pumps billions into the economy but will it last? Dell on

the defensive - as its founder battles to keep control of the

struggling PC maker. Welcome to World Business Report. Also in the

programme Singapore Airlines rethinks its strategy as it faces

new competition in Asia and the Gulf. We start in Japan where there

is strong evidence that massive and controversial stimulus measures are

paying off. Japan's GDP grew 0.9% in the first 3 months of the year

compared with the previous quarter. That's stronger than expected and

when you look back on the past year its economy grew by 3.5% - again

much stronger than expected and much stronger than the 2.5% growth

seen by the US in the same quarter. The figures cover the first

complete quarter since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe returned to

power in December - pledging to drag Japan out of two decades of

economic stagnation with huge government spending financed by

printing unlimited amounts of yen. Let's talk to our correspondent in

Tokyo Rupert Wingfield-Hayes. Nice to see you. It would seem that

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's medicine is working for now? I am

sure that that is what Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will be

claiming. He will be well pleased at the figures. They come at the

end of the first quarter since he came back to power. They come

before very important elections in the summer here. Very important

that Japan's economy is undergoing robust growth. But there is much

going on here about what the figures actually mean. His is a

real turn round? Warra is it a lot of froth produced by pumping a lot

of money into the economy. It is 70% up since the beginning of the

year, pushing down the value of the yen, milling exporters are making

bigger profit but that is not in itself a fundamental change in

direction of the Japanese economy. There is a degree of scepticism

that anything has really changed fundamentally here. Other figures

still skewed because of the Fukushima disaster in 2011? Does

that still have an effect? There has been a lot of infrastructure

spending helping the figures? cannot name the exact number but

they are you. The amount of money the government put in very building

after the earthquake and a tsunami. I am not sure what that is in

dollars but it is a huge amount of dock of money. At the beginning of

the year, another huge amount of money to be added to that was

announced by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. So it is still having an

impact. There is inevitably going to have a knock-on effect in

boosting the economy. That is an important part of what we have seen

in the past few months, so is the stock market rally. But is this

sustainable? The jury is still out. Thank you very much. Something we

will discuss when we get more information about how Japan is

doing. Looking at some corporate stories. Dell reports its first

quarter earnings later five days early. It's a highly unusual move.

The PC maker hasn't given a reason, but there's speculation its poised

to reveal profits news that is much worse than expected and wants to

inform Wall Street as soon as shrinking share of a declining PC

market that's led to a battle for control of the company. For two

decades, this was the computer to have. But those days are gone. PC

sales are declining as customers favour tablets and mobile devices.

Here is a problem - Dell is struggling to remain relevant. In

2000 it hit an all-time high of $54 in the stock market. The stock

price now hovers around $13.50. What to do with the company's

future? Two men and two competing visions for Dell. On the left, the

founder and CEO. On the right, the largest shareholder. Michael Dell

wants to take the company back into private hands and change it from a

PC maker to a full service IT Computer or possibly something more.

But corporate investors believe the company is worth more and is

putting another off on the table. One that would keep the first and

largest computer maker up publicly treated company. If that the canals,

it is unlikely Michael Dell will continue as CEO. Wrestling the

company away from the man who founded it will not be easy. When

we get the results from Dell, which will make headlines later today, we

will update you on the BBC. Asia's second biggest airline reports

results today. Singapore Airlines is finding life tough being caught

between the well-funded Gulf airlines and the cheaper budget

carriers. So how are they faring? Let's speak to Rico Hizon in

Singapore. Nice to see. Singapore Airlines having a tough time - what

is again to do about it? A lot of trouble for Singapore Airline over

the past year. It offered the deal at the dropping by 70%. -- its

profitability. Over the past year, there have been attending a big

strategy overall to boost sales. Stake in Virgin Atlantic, they

started a new Budget airline, potentially increasing their stake

in Tiger Airways. They also have the airline cutting costs.

Terminating contracts of all 70 sick of its foreign pilots.

Hopefully these changes will pay off. The forecast for wait 22% hike

in net profit to $330 million. It's a long haul routes may be helping

traffic. If you take a look at the premium class travel, which makes

up 40% of revenue, this has been hit by cutbacks in corporate

budgets. Offers and initiatives from major golf carriers such as an

roads and Qatar Airways, -- Emirates. Which a strong financial

backing have been taking away market shares. The numbers will

reveal if their strategy has worked and what impact the competition has

had on its competition and revenue. We told you yesterday to keep an

eye out for Google. It is hosting 6,000 engineers, entrepreneurs and

journalists at its conference in San Francisco. Is a chance for it

to showcase its latest services, among them a revamp of Google map.

The conference and Google has been unveiling changes to services.

Google Maps is one of the major ones. What users will notice about

the new version? The most dramatic change will be the search by is

available on the top left. You see much more of the map experience

when you look at the screen. We can actually do touch screen in this

case. In this case, it is a coffee shop. We have freed the imagery.

You're going to know what the neighbourhood is like before you

get there. You can quickly back out of it just like that. What is the

thinking here? It is more personalised? But you are also

getting more advertising? It is more unique view. We are hoping to

make your experience tight your searches. If you're searching for

coffee places, we want at the relevant to that. This giant

advertising business which Google is - this is a key product?

Absolutely. We should point out that during the preview period,

there will be no charge to advertisers as a part of all this.

Going forward, it is an opportunity for them but we want to make it

useful for the user. We will have more from Sanz -- San Francisco. In

other news: The world's biggest retailer Wal-Mart reports first

quarter results later - they're expected to show improving spending

by US shoppers who had been holding off purchases after tax rises hit

them at the beginning of the year. There's likely to be a lot of

attention on Wal-Mart's policies in Bangladesh after it refused to join

a factory safety accord signed by most other garment retailers. Oil

giant BP says it may have to pay billions of dollars more than it

expected in compensation to businesses affected by the

Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The oil giant has lodged an appeal in

the US against the settlement procedure because it believes that

huge amounts are going to companies that don't deserve to be

compensated. BP worries it will be irreparably harmed by the costs and

has asked the British government to intervene. Britain's government

spending watchdog the National Audit Office has criticised plans

for a new high speed north-south rail link - which would be the UK's

biggest ever infrastructure project. The NAO says the project's funding

is more than 3 billion pounds short and that it's not clear how it will

bring economic growth. You would think the good news about the

Japanese economy will give a boost to the market but no. The Nikkei is

down by just over 1%. It closed above 50,000 yesterday for the

it is time for some province to be taken. We have some bad news from