21/10/2016 World Business Report

being born with the neurological disorder microcephaly. Time now for

the latest business news with Victoria and World Business Report.

Rough trade. Europe's megadeal with Canada runs into trouble, casting

doubt on bigger talks with the US and post Brexit Britain. And the

toughest job in business. We met the man trying to salvage Brazil's state

oil giant, Petrobras. European leaders are battling

to save the trade agreement with Ceta, the comprehensive economic

and trade agreement, has caused a backlash,

a public backlash, and has now been blocked by a Belgian

regional parliament. This row has really called

into question the entire credibility of the EU, when it comes

to agreeing major trade deals. The far bigger deal, of course,

is the transatlantic trade and investment partnership,

with the United States, And of course there is the issue

about any future with the UK, On Thursday the European Council

president, Donald Tusk, warned about these deals. The problem goes beyond

Ceta. If you are not able to convince people that trade

agreements are in their interests, if you are not able to convince them

that our representatives negotiate the free-trade agreements to protect

people's interest, we will have no chance to build public support for

free trade. And I am afraid that means that Ceta could be our last

free-trade agreement. The head of Europe and trade policy

in the UK is with me. Thank you for coming in. The EU has spent years

negotiating this trade deal. But the tide of popular opinion is going

against trade deals, so is the real danger here that precedent that this

set is? It is interesting, from Trump, to TTIP, it seems global free

trade is under threat like never before. It is really important to

stress that whether it is TTIP or Ceta we are in uncharted waters. We

have an unprecedented situation where a small regional parliament is

not only threatening to block the Canada EU trade deal, it is now

actually directly negotiating today, Friday, with the Canadian government

directly. So it really sets in jeopardy what is the actual EU's

competence in trade policy going forward. In this particular area,

Wallonia, most people will not have heard of it before, cows apparently

outnumber people three to one. This is a situation where a regional

court could be deciding EU policy. Do you think it is economic suicide?

I think the EU hasn't helped itself by setting a slightly artificial

deadline. This could be solved if there was a bit more time going

forward. Having said that, the EU is putting its entire credibility on

the line at this moment. We also have a situation where there was a

referendum in the Netherlands about rejecting a trade deal in the

Ukraine and so even if it were signed at the moment that is only a

provisional application to go forward with the trade deal next

year. Bolivar 28 countries and their sub federal regions decide they

don't want to ratify it, where does EU trade policy go from here? As a

very big lobby group in the UK, the Institute of Directors, are you

concerned about where this leaves Britain in a post Brexit world when

it comes to trade? I think it shows the difficulty of getting a

multiplicity of players at the Federal and sub federal level, there

are so many players who will have an interesting view about TTIP. But it

is too early to say that will have a problem for TTIP. These tend to be

trade liberalisation agreements which always have a bit of

opposition. Some countries will be quite happy to see the UK go and

won't necessarily block it on those grounds.

In Brazil, for two years the state oil giant,

Petrobras, has been at the centre of a scandal.

The effect brought down the President, and left the company

The new boss, Pedro Parente, is the man in charge now,

and he is tasked with salvaging the company.

He is trying to sell off assets and bring in vital investment, as Brazil

has some of the world's largest offshore oil reserves. He told the

BBC's business correspondent that in five years' time his company could

be back to its former glory. We have just announced a new strategic plan.

This is a plan for 2017 up until 2021. However, it was the easiest

part, because the most important one is to deliver the plan. I think

that, after this period, we will see the company back to its best days.

Do you think foreign companies are willing to partner up with

Petrobras? The company still has that image of corruption it is

trying to shake off. There is also the question of very high levels of

debt, and also there is nothing to guarantee that you will be here

after two years, because a new president will be elected in 2018. I

don't think it is a good idea to be depending on one person although I

don't think it is work done by just one person. It is work done by a

team, a team that is working very hard in order to place the company

at the levels I mentioned before. So what we are working to do is to

improve the institutional organisation of the company. Can you

give us a bit of an example? Two years from now, if a new political

group comes into power in Petrobras in the company still runs with a

state mindset that appoints political people to bury the

positions, wouldn't that happen again in 2018? What is important to

know is that we have changed a lot of internal rules related to the

decision-making process. For instance, in the past, during the

days in which the problems happened, you could take a very important

decision to buy or to hire you sign a contract by just one person. It is

not possible any more. You need at least two executive directors

signing this contract, you need at least five different committees

assessing this operation. We do believe that these scenarios will

make it very, very difficult for anyone that would come in the future

to try to break up and do whatever they want, as it was in the past.

What a job. Moving on, the Filipino President, Duterte, is in Beijing

for talks with China. Yesterday he announced the separation from the

United States. It is a huge concern in Washington and in the last few

hours the Philippine Trade Minister has been trying to minimise the

damage, saying the country will maintain its trade and economic ties

with the US. Our correspondent has been talking to him. What has he

been saying to you? That's right, as you said, the Philippine trade

Secretary is trying to minimise the damage, despite what President

Rodrigo Duterte said. He seemed to have made his feelings pretty clear

about separating from the US, but I was speaking to the trade Secretary,

Ramon Lopez, it sounded like his president actually didn't say it. He

said they would not be stopping investments with the US, that they

are maintaining the relationship with the West but they are trying to

reduce or do away with too much dependence. He maintained that there

was no economic separation and that the Philippines will continue to

accept investments in exports from the US as well as import to there as

well. He said his president was keen to renew the relationship, as well

as what he called the historical friendship with China, despite the

ongoing territorial tensions at the two have endured. And in fact the

two sides have very much decided to focus on closer economic ties during

Rodrigo Duterte's visit to China. They have signed deals worth $13.5

billion. Some very mixed messaging coming out of the Philippines. Let's

have a quick look at some other news for you, and the US

telecommunications giant ATT and Time Warner have announced a

possible merger. They have been buying up media businesses to get a

hold of possible content. They bought Direct TV last year for $48.5

billion. Time Warner rejected a takeover offer from 20th Century Fox

in 2014 and it has a market value of $65 billion. Microsoft shares have

surged more than 6% to an all-time high after it reported much better

than earnings. It has boosted its soaring sales from cloud competing

as well as more companies shifting away from their own hardware to

storing data in the cloud. It has been an industry heavily dominated

by Microsoft by Microsoft in the Amazon story as

well. Looking at the markets, Asian stocks mainly lower today. The

dollar climbed against a basket of currencies to a seven-month high.

The dollar boosted by a fall in the euro because the ECB shot down some

talk about contemplating tapering its monetary policy, using position.

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