18/08/2014 World Business Report

unrest following the shooting of the teenager, reportedly unarmed,

Michael Brown. We will keep you up`to`date.

Two more airlines has suspended flights to different African

destinations in the wake of the Ebola outbreak. If more airlines

begin to follow suit, what impact will that have on the broader

African economy? And in Switzerland, cheesemakers and

other businesses get ready to cash in on the EU and US sanctions on

Russia. Welcome to World Business Report.

I'm Aron Heslehurst. Let's have a look at the latest business news. We

will talk about Switzerland and we have the latest growth figures from

Thailand. First, Kenya Airways has suspended all commercial flight

operations to Liberia and Sierra Leone from midnight Tuesday. The

suspension comes after Korean Air announced last week it. All flights

to and from Kenya from Wednesday this week. That underlines the

growing fears outside of Africa about the spread of Ebola, however,

so far there have been no cases in East Africa, let alone Kenya. If

more airlines begin to follow suit, what impact will that have on the

broader African economy? Razia Khan, Regional Head of

Research for Africa at Standard Chartered, joins us. Looking at this

story, you think there are mixed messages coming from the World

Health Organization. On one hand they say the outbreak has been

farcically underestimated and requires extraordinary measures on a

massive scale. `` drastically. But they say they aren't urging

organisations to put a blanket ban on travel. It's a hard decision.

Unfortunately this is adding to some degree of confusion in the `` in

relation to the response required. The Kenyan economy isn't yet

impacting but of course it is important as a travel hub. It has

the kind of infrastructure that Africa needs more of, in terms of

boosting trade. Yet we've had the guidance from the World Health

Organization that Kenya might be considered at high risk, precisely

because it's a hub. It's also a big hub for cargo. For a lot of that

region, it is the gateway to East Africa. A lot of the region's

perishables, the produce we consume, go through Nairobi and have to go on

planes. Absolutely. Economically, there have been concerns about

travel warnings and security issues in Kenya, which have led to a

falloff in tourism numbers. Because Kenya is such a big hub for culture

and horticulture exporter, it does need this frequency of air traffic

into the country to be able to keep cargo costs down. If we see any more

cancellations that can potentially have more in `` more than in fact on

exports. Is this the start to that? I spoke to experts over economic

worries about Ebola and the wider impact on Africa, is busy start to

the content and worries? Not of the virus but economic contagion what

about Nigeria? `` contagion worries? This is the situation around Nigeria

that we have to focus on closely. There was a Liberian traveller going

into Lagos. That's the economic hub of the entire sub region. Nigeria is

the largest economy in Nigeria, Lagos the centre of a lot of the

commercial activity that takes place. So far the impact has been

relatively contained and it's hard to pinpoint a clear economic

impact. But, should be getting is that this is, greater severity, of

Ebola, this could all change and change rapidly. Clearly the risks

are there. Risks and worries. Is there a worry that Korean air could

be setting the precedent for other airlines to follow? For the moment

that kind of reaction is seen as fairly limited. We haven't crucially

seen the same for many European airlines, but are more crucial to

those ex` other routes. For the moment, this is a developing

situation and we will have to monitor it carefully. `` other

airline routes. Indeed. Thank you. Now, is it a nice little opportunity

or an awkward dilemma? Non EU member Switzerland is in a quandary over

Russian sanctions. It hasn't imposed them and so its own goods, like the

cheese you can see here, aren't subject to that tit for tat spat and

those Russian food banks, a situation that doesn't please

Switzerland's biggest trading partner, the European Union.

Switzerland has something the Russians crave. Cheese. Here, they

have been exporting to Russia for 20 years and now the Russians want

more. Much more. Since last Wednesday we received maybe 15 calls

from Russia every day. A lot of queries about cheese or dairy

products. Russia's bands from EU countries on dairy products means

its supermarkets will soon be empty of French camembert or Dutch food.

So, the Russians are turning to Switzerland. `` Dutch gouda. But the

Swiss want to take `` stay neutral. The government won't adopt

sanctions. They say Switzerland would be the place to break them.

The policy has highlighted many close ties the Swiss have with

Russia. Geneva in particular has strong business ties with Russia.

The city is a global hub for commodities trading and 75% of

Russian oil is traded here. 66% of Russian green. Sanctions on Russian

banks and on Russian individuals could affect this business. ``

grain. Geneva traders say they will be forced to comply, whatever

Switzerland's policy. Traders are active everywhere in the world. They

are already subject to US and EU sanctions, it was of the present in

this market. They have to care about that and they have to care for their

reputation, also because of the financing, which is transactional

financing. This means they have to be careful, so counterparties don't

come up against someone who has sections. The opportunity for Swiss

cheese makers may not be so great. Unlike the French or Dutch, they are

too small to produce the industrial quantities Russia now wants. Its

efforts not to take sides in the sanctions may cause Switzerland more

pain than gain. We will keep across that story. A

sigh of relief in Thailand, as the country narrowly avoided recession.

The economy grew 0.9% in the second quarter from the previous three

months and 0.4% from a year earlier. Saranjit Leyl is in our Asia

Business hub in Singapore. Not bad, given all the worries we had after

the last government upheaval. That's right. The growth of just .4% from

the previous year, ever so slightly. It does mean Thailand

avoids that technical recession everyone feared. The first three

months of this year we saw that political chaos, thousands

protesting in Bangkok. That's when the economy shrank nearly 2%.

Despite the political uncertainty, they are actually seeming to have

helped the economy slightly. They have ended the political and

economic impasse and this growth basically shows an uptake in

consumer confidence, investor confidence as well to summit stand

and busily courage the military government, which is said to impose

an $80 million budget today to date is delayed the economy. They have

renewed payments to farmers, restarted in `` infrastructure

plans. They have cut fuel prices. They hope all of this will get the

economy going again until some sense of political stability is restored.

We know other elements of the economy haven't been doing well,

reticular literalism, which is a key part of the Thai economy and counts

for some 10% of the total. `` especially tourism. The number of

visitors has fallen nearly 12% in the first couple of months of this

year from the previous year. Thank you for the update. You can tweak me

as well. I will be back shortly to have a look at the headlines from

around the world. `` tweet me. We will go to the papers in a

moment. First, courts in England