20/01/2014 World Business Report

most secure areas of the city. Those are the latest headlines from

BBC World News. Now for the latest financial news in World Business

Report. China's economic growth rate falls

to a still impressive 7.7%. But that is still a rate most other countries

can only dream about. And the gender gap is still alive

and well. New research shows female graduates ask for much lower

starting salaries than their male colleagues.

Welcome to World Business Report. I'm Sally Bundock.

Also, bad news from Deutsche Bank. It is hit with costly fines.

Economic growth in China, the world's second largest economy, was

at its slowest for 14 years in 2013. Its gross domestic product expanded

7.7% from the year before - the slowest pace of growth since 1999.

However,. It was better than the government's target of 7.5%. China

needs a high level of growth to provide new jobs and prosperity and

so the focus now is on economic reform and one place where that is

meant to be on display is in the new free trade zone, which opened in

Shanghai four months ago. Here's our correspondent, John Sudworth.

So far, not much appears to have happened. The old warehouses and

factories are still here. As they were four months ago when this plot

of land was formally opened as part of Shanghai's new free-trade zone.

Behind the scenes, there has been a flurry of activity. More than 40

business consultancies have been set up to help thousands of interested

companies register inside the zone. Rents have more than doubled. There

is a sense of idealism and adventure. TRANSLATION: China is

entering a new era with new leadership. The free trade zone

could be a connecting point between China and the world. As a young man,

my game is based on my country's dream. I hope to achieve something

here. On the edge of the free-trade zone, a reminder of China's existing

model of growth, based on energy intensive heavy industry. The zone

is supposed to be about moving towards a new model, creating the

conditions to encourage the financial and service sector

companies that are vital to a consumer economy. But despite the

high hopes, four months after the signboards went up, some beginning

to wonder whether it will have a significant impact. People are

moving cautiously. Bold measures like full currency convertibility

remains aspirational rather than reality. There is certainly no

shortage of pioneering companies hoping to get themselves a foothold.

But whether this really is the gateway into China's future, the

next big leap forward in economic reform, there is not enough detail

to judge. David Wilder from Market News

International joins me now from Beijing. There is quite a delay

between my speaking and David hearing. Please bear with us. What

is your take on this figure, 7.7% growth for 2013. It is not a good

figure. But it is not a bad one either. The good news is, as you

say, it is above last year's target of 7.5%. It reflects a slowing

investment and slowing output. But the bigger problem is investment is

actually making up a bigger proportion of the growth then seen

in 2009 and 2003. That reflects the idea the government has resorted in

the middle of last year to the kind of a moderate version of the

stimulus than we are used to seeing, as growth need the 7.5%

target. The bigger question is, why is it slowing? Local governments are

borrowing more amounts of money even though the economy is growing a

little bit slowly. That is the biggest concern in the 2014. I was

going to ask you about your concerns. The worry about the amount

of money borrowed. Risky debts. A lot of banks have warned China this

year. What is your view? The current support is, will there be a limb and

type crisis? -- Lehman Brothers type crisis? The economy is borrowing too

much and going too slowly. The government needs to sort it out. The

problem with that is that low volumes of credit implied and a lot

of weight of growth. Will that be tolerated when the government needs

growth? Deutsche Bank has reported a

surprise loss for the fourth quarter of 2013, after releasing its latest

results earlier than expected. Overall, Deutsche said it posted a

pre-tax loss of just over one billion euros for the final quarter

of 2013. In dollars, that's $1.5 billion. The bank said that

litigation costs and restructuring had weighed heavily on its financial

performance. The legal bills mounted up to 528 million euros for the

period, while revenues fell 16%. We'll see how shares in Deutsche

shares react to this news this morning when trading starts in a few

hours' time. Shares of Japan's Nintendo plunged

18% at the open in Tokyo after the gaming giant warned it would swing

back into the red. The news comes as Nintendo slashed its global sales

forecast for its flagship Wii U game console from nine million units to

2.8 million consoles. The company also scaled back its expectations

for its 3DS portable game console from 18 million units to 13.5

million. However, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata claimed that there are

no short-term plans to reshuffle management.

Female graduates are not asking for the going rate salary, compared to

their male counterparts setting out at the beginning of their career.

Graduate-jobs.com measured results over a ten-year period and found

that female graduates request lower starting salaries than male

graduates. Also, the starting salary requested by female graduates in the

UK is ?1,438 lower than male graduates.

With me is Gerry Wyatt, operations director at graduate-jobs.com. You

found this out. How did you come to the conclusion? How did you measure

this? Every graduate and visit our site and register is to use our

service, we ask them, what would you want your starting salary to be? We

did that over ten years. We did that with 500 million graduates. The

salary difference between males and females over ten years has been

relatively consistent. Women on average request a salary that is

about ?1000 less than their male counterparts. In 2011, the gap

widened to ?1400. Is it true to say that in a lot of graduate jobs, the

salary is kind of fixed? N in your career, when you can negotiate and

say what you wish to earn, it that not the case? Absolutely. In

entry-level roles, the salary is fixed. This is purely based on the

question of what you want to be paid. Why is that capital they are?

There are a few reasons. -- gap still there. Female graduates tend

to gravitate towards media, advertising and marketing. In the

downturn, those industries may have been hard hit. Those salaries may

have come down. Women may have reflected their expectations

differently. That could be one reason. Hopefully, we are in a

period of recovery so that gap might start closing. There is also

potentially... There has been research about the gender pay divide

the past few years. Maybe females are responding to the fact that

there does appear to be salary divide. Will keep an eye on that.

Thank you. There is the slowing growth in the

world's number two economy. A new action plan to improve

standards of mental health treatment will be launched by the Government

today. The Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, has set out 25 areas

where changes are needed and says mental health should have an equal

priority with physical health. Michael Buchanan reports.

At a hospital in Kent, Nick Clegg he's from