08/01/2014 World Business Report

route from Mumbai to the northern city of Dehradun when the fire

struck, filling three carriages with suffocating smoke. Those are the

latest headlines from BBC World News. Now for the latest financial

news in World Business Report. An uphill struggle as economists

around the world say it is time to sell Chinese assets. China fights

back with tougher regulations and measures to improve the accuracy of

its economic data. Launching the next big thing. In Las

Vegas, the boss of Sony explains why profit increases might slow but new

innovations are still coming thick and fast.

Welcome to World Business Report. I'm Sally Bundock. Also in the

programme, China lifts a ban on games consoles and Nintendo shares

soar. We'll have the details. Doom and gloom seems to be the

overriding message for the emerging markets this year. As leading

economists at the world's biggest banks release their 2014 forecasts,

the key message is it's time for investors to cut their exposure to

emerging markets. China's growing debt mountain is cited as one of the

key concerns. Fears that China's growth rate is falling sharper than

official figures reveal is also a worry. So in an attempt to reassure

investors, China's chief statistician said his country will

improve the quality of its economic data. And regulators are reportedly

going to clamp down on the country's relaxed lending system. But is this

too little, too late? Have investors already lost confidence in the

country? That's a question for the BBC's

Chief Business Correspondent Linda Yueh. She joins me now from

Singapore. Nice to see you. Are we right to be concerned about China's

outlook in the year ahead? Have the economists the right advice? Think

there is cause for concern. One of the concerned is whether the debt

burden makes China less sustainable. That is one reason why they have

ordered an audit. It is the first since 2010. It shows that local

government debt and, Sally, China is the second-biggest economy but it is

still less than half the size of the US. Local government debt in China

is approximately the same size as municipal debt in the US. With a big

debt burden and worries over the accuracy of the measurement of GDP

because it is always the debt to GDP ratio that investors look out, this

is a key reason why China's debt issue has become a problem that

weighs on global investors' minds again. These news from the chief

statistician saying that we will make sure that our data is reliable,

is that going to help us? Will that be effective in terms of investors

overseas thing in China is a safer bet? I think that he will have a

pretty tough hill to climb. This is not the first attempt that the

Chinese National bureau of statistics has made to try to

improve the precision of their statistics. One of the biggest

discrepancy is that we have seen is that if you take the national

estimate of GDP and compare that to the report, there is at least a 10%

difference in terms of size of the economy and that is a huge

discrepancy. If you think about debt burden, if you can't get that right,

that is a key issue. The other thing to say is that this is a ongoing

effort. It is an effort to stop local authorities from falsifying

darter. It is also an attempt by the Chinese authorities to measure what

hasn't been measured. -- data. A lot of rural activity is not measured.

The grey in formal economy is a big part of China. I would not always

think of them inaccuracy as an under measurement. Sometimes, it is under

measured. Sometimes you have to say that you will do something but it is

another thing to see how they will do it. Briefly, there are moves to

curb excessive risky lending. Will that work as well? That will be

tough. There are ways they are trying to do it. One is to rein back

world of management products. Dodgy products which remind you of

sub-prime mortgages. They will try to clamp down on that. That is part

of the shadow banking system. Another part of that will be hard to

clamp down on it how local is borrow. There is a big attempt to

allow local governments to borrow on bond markets and that will take some

time. Those are the two main ways in which China will try to clean up its

debt system. It is probably the case that at the moment, the overhang of

debt in China is going to be one of the biggest worries of investors

going into 2014. Both of those cleanups will take some time. Thank

you very much. That was an analysis of what is happening in China. This

news has come through in the last few days affecting the market.

Now for some of the latest news from the consumer electronics show in

Vegas. Amazon is teaming up with Samsung to popularize ultra

high-definition television. Intel has launched its new personal

assistant, dubbed 'Jarvis', its answer to Apple's voice-activated

Siri. And Sony has launched its latest PlayStation. So what exactly

is the shape of things to come for these tech giants? Technology

correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones caught up with Sony's chief

executive, Kazuo Hirai. A tabletop screen showing live

television, my calendar, post- it notes, all on the kitchen table. It

is just a concept at the moment. In Las Vegas, Sony has been unveiling

and entire range of products. I have been speaking to the President about

where the firm is heading. Wearable technology is huge here. You have

launched something new. Tellers about it. Iron wearing the

wristband. Inside the wristband, if I can find it, is the call. -- I'm

wearing the wristband. It goes in here. It logs all your activities,

walking, in the car, on a bicycle. All the physical activities which

you do. It allows you to basically blog photos you have taken, what

music you listen to and everything you do in a day. The big battle in

recent months has been gaming consoles. The Sony PlayStation 4 is

seen as a great gaming machine that the Xbox One, is leading in terms of

an entertainment, so how do you think the battle is going? We sold

4.2 million units which is a very high number in deed. Will you call

victory then in the battle? I have always said that the console

business is a 5-10 year proposition. The disappointment a few years back

with the unexpected profit warning. That must have been a big

disappointment. If you look at it from a quarterly perspective, it was

a disappointment but again, one quarter does not make an entire

business. At the same time, every quarter matters so we have to make

sure that we have the best products, that we do the most efficient

business. There are some things we cannot control like the exchange

rate for example but we need to make sure that the business is robust

enough that we can afford to absorb differences in exchange rates. There

will need to be tough decision. No Mac we have tried to do that many

times. Some businesses are growing. Some will have more employees and

other businesses where it shrinks, we will restructure. That is the

part of business. It is not something we do one day, that is an

ongoing process. That was the boss of Sony speaking

to our correspondant who is at CES. Other correspondence are there. We

have a teen death for the BBC. This is our technology page on the

website. Do take a look. You can follow our team on Twitter as well.

In other news: Chinese authorities are set to lift a ban on games

consoles. The move will boost companies such as Ninetendo. Sony

and Nintendo shares rose by more than 6% on the news. In 2000,

Chinese authorities banned consoles such as the Wii U and Sony's

PlayStation to protect youths from the perceived corrupting influence

of video games. The US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew

meets German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble in Berlin before

travelling on and meeting Portuguese Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho

in Lisbon. In Germany, Lew will press the idea of more support for

crisis countries like Greece, Portugal and Spain, urging them to

pursue reforms while supporting their return to growth with stronger

demand inside Germany. The markets today, Japan is standing

out yet again. It is up 1.53%. A lot is to do with the currency. It is

weakening against other currencies except for the Canadian dollar.

Japanese companies are set to gain quite significant money it is the

trend. Hong Kong is up as well but you can that the yen is down. Those

are the events of the day there. I'll see you soon as we talk through

the papers. Voters should have to show ID at

polling stations, like they do in Northern Ireland, in an attempt to

stamp out vote-rigging, according to the Elections watchdog.