21/02/2014 World Business Report

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

news with World Business Report. G20 finance chiefs gather in Sydney

- top of the agenda, the turmoil in emerging markets Plus - capturing

your every move - we look at the booming business of lifelogging.

Welcome to World Business Report. Coming up in the programme, Shell

continues its sell-off of assets as it tries to win over investors. The

meetings haven't begun but already the finger pointing has started.

Finance Ministers and Central Bankers from the Group of 20

developed and developing nations are gathering in Sydney over the next

three days. Topping the agenda - the turmoil in emerging markets sparked

by the US Federal Reserve "tapering", or beginning to wind

down, its economic stimulus measures. In recent years,

developing countries have been gorging on cheap borrowing.

According to one estimate, emerging market borrowers raised almost a

trillion dollars on international bond markets between 2010 and 2013,

taking advantage of rock bottom borrowing costs. Since the Fed began

to shift its policy there has been a rout in emerging markets as foreign

investors pull their money out. Taking account of falls in the local

currency - Indonesian shares are down 18 and a half per cent in the

past year. By the same measure, Brazil's market has lost almost 30

per cent. And Turkey's main index has fallen by more than a third. So

who's to blame? Emerging market leaders have been complaining the

Fed has paid too little attention to the impact on them. But on Thursday,

IMF Chief Christine Lagarde said they should put their own houses in

order and look to problems in their own economies instead of blaming

Western monetary policy. UK Chancellor George Osborne also

weighed in during a speech in Hong Kong. Together, we have to act now

to ensure the emerging market problems don't contribute to a new

crisis. And how do we do that? By each one of us putting our own

houses in order, and by using the G20 to make sure we all confront our

problems instead of running away from them. In recent months, we have

seen volatility in several emerging markets, with currencies weakening

about to 19%, bond yield spiking about to 11%, and sudden falls in

equity markets across Latin America and Asia. Now most emerging markets

are much more robust than they were in the late 1990s. And in many

cases, flexible exchange rates are functioning correctly as shock

absorbers. But if we've learned anything from the recent great

recession, it is that this inter-connected global economy means

one country's problems can very quickly become everyone else's

problem. Nick Beecroft is Chairman and Senior Market Analyst at Saxo

Capital Markets. We have heard the arguments that we heard just their.

How much impact did US tapering have on emerging markets? Very

significant. Whatever the US does is so important that the global

economy. It is ironic given that a few years ago there were cries that

the US had embarked on currency wars. It is clear from the latest

actions of the Fed that they will not change direction, they are

mandated with running the US economy not the global economy. We have

heard from Christine Lagarde that you should take care of your own

economies. How much the point she have? She has a good point. The

turbulence has been limited to those economies with somewhat less strong

fundamentals. Current-account deficits, high debt, high inflation.

The message is from the IMF and from the US, behind the scenes, to try to

address those problems. That move away from foreign policy and

reliance on the US will have an impact on currencies? We have seen a

weakening in a lot of these so-called fragile currencies. May

continue -- that may continue but it will not turn into the earlier

crises. The G 20 is always interesting. What do you expect this

time. There are a lot of countries like Russia and China that are in

focus. China will be making it plain that it is trying to rebalance its

economy away from export driven growth to domestic consumption. With

that comes a slowdown. The Western world, America and so on, will not

complain. They have been a seachange in do that for a long time. It will

not be a terribly contentious G 20. To the world of technology now where

sales of smart watches, smart glasses and other wearable devices

are set to increase five fold over the next couple of years. This could

mean a new phase for the internet as we gather ever more data about

ourselves - where we go, what we do, how many calories we burn up. It's

known as Lifelogging - as Caroline Hepker has been finding out.

This man has been capturing his entire life were nearly eight years

with this small camera that takes photographs every few seconds. The

IT research says that this is the next evolution of the Internet. We

are developing a search engine for the self. Just like Google indexes

100 billion webpages, we will index all of the data that we can get

about a person and make a search engine available for them. They can

query the last time they had a favourite bottle of wine, whether

they park at the airport. It will capture your information for a

private matter. But few places can store and analyse so much data, even

as cameras have become smaller and more affordable. Other devices are

popping up. This is my attempt to track my life. I wear this wristband

which tracks my activity levels will stop I also have this, an Internet

connected set of weighting scales. The information from these devices

goes to my smart device. It is a great motivational tool and 20

million wearable devices, from fitness trainers to smart watches

and glasses will be shipped this year. The potential is vast. In the

past we would have to write down Davies keep logs which was a lot of

effort for people, whereas with these Lifelogging technologies you

can automatically track these behaviours. It also raises troubling

questions about our privacy. But tracking our every move is the new

data gold rush. Shell has announced that it is shelling -- selling off

its last oil refinery in Australia. What is going on with Shell? They

have essentially agreed to sell their Australian downstream business

to another firm for $2.6 billion. The sale includes a Shell refinery,

780 service stations, boxed fuels, chemicals, lubricants. Shell is

looking to dispose of assets as part of a wider strategy that will try to

see the company changing emphasis for the new year 2014. The sales

come at a time when profits at Shell have been declining. Posted profits

last month were $2.9 billion. That was for the October to December

quarter. But that is down by nearly 50%. Shell has also had a series of

other refining sales around the world. The firm has offloaded a lot

of its downstream businesses in Egypt, Spain, Greece, Finland, and

lots of other countries. The majority of its staff in Australia

will continue to work under its new owner but the deal is subject to the

usual regular Tory approvals and expected to close this year. --

regulatory approvals. In other news: Royal Bank of Scotland is preparing

to withdraw from investment banking and lay off at least 30,000 staff in

the next three to five years. That's according to a report in the

Financial Times. According to the FT, the restructuring will see the

bank refocus on retail, small business and corporate banking. RBS

is 82 per cent owned by the UK Government after it received a 75

billion dollar bailout in 2008. Let's take a look at the markets

now. Magistrates in England and Wales

should be based inside police stations, according to an

influential think tank. The right-leaning group Policy Exchange

says the move would speed up legal proceedings and save money. But the

Magistrates Association has called the idea "backward and

inappropriate". Our home affairs correspondent, Danny Shaw,