06/12/2016 World Business Report

Going... Going...

Gone - Angela Merkel is the last G5 leader standing but can she hold on?

We ask whether Germany's economy can help keep her in power.

leaders of South Korea's biggest businesses are questioned

on live television over a corruption scandal involving the president.

Also in the programme we take you to the grocery shop

where there are no Qs and no check-outs.

In a few hours' time, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel

will address her party as political uncertainty continues

2016 has been a year of political upheaval,

with many world leaders either gone or in the process of going:

Barack Obama, Francois Hollande, David Cameron and, yesterday,

Italy's Matteo Renzi handed in his resignation,

So is Angela Merkel now a leader from a different political time?

Or will she prove to have the necessary staying power

in an era of more populist, anti-EU parties?

Germany is viewed by many as the engine-room of the Eurozone.

But the latest data shows its economy has been

under-performing, with growth halving to just 0.2%

Exports are critical accounting for around 47% of all economic

activity and there are concerns poor economic performance could be

The United Kingdom is Germany's third biggest trading partner

and there are fears this relationship could suffer

when Britain leaves the European Union.

Despite this, Germany has benefited from a flood of cheap money

as the European Central Bank continues its landmark $1.9 trillion

stimulus package across the eurozone.

This has boosted German exporters by keeping the value

With me is Marc Ostwald, Foreign Exchange Strategist

at ADM Investor Services International.

Good morning. Nice to see you. It certainly has been a surprising and

shocking year for some leaders, not others. What are the challenges

facing Angela Merkel and she says she wants to go another time in a

general election? She has found the constellation of the right moment to

stand again after a lot of internal struggling. Interestingly, in the

opinion poll, ever since she declared her candidacy, they are

standing by her by about four percentage points. As much as the

German economy slowed quite markedly in the third quarter, it looks like

it is picking up a bit in the fourth quarter. Some of the acute worries

which were putting her under a lot of pressure, her policy on refugees

which many Germans do not agree with - certainly not the Liberal degree

of it - has subsided. Whatever people might think of the rights and

wrongs of the Turkish government decision. It has actually been

boosted by the arrival refugees, the German economy. That was a bold move

to accept a million refugees which many in Germany were not happy at

all about. You saying that in the year, she will be the leader that at

the trend and state. It will be about the continuity candidate and

not a new populist party? Yes, one has to understand the German

economy, even if it has slowed somewhat, it is actually doing

really well. There is no reason to unseat Angela Merkel in the way that

in Italy, the UK and France people feel uncomfortable about the way the

economy is going. In Germany, most people feel there is a certain

degree of complacency with the economy growing, there is no other

obvious leader, either. In the new year, what will be the political

risk - France? It is. Most certainly. We do not really know how

Marine Le Pen it will be challenged. They will have to shift to the

centre to challenge her. We will report on how the speech

that Angela Merkel does later today to her party.

The heads of South Korea's biggest businesses are being questioned

on live television in relation to the scandal that has engulfed

The leaders of Samsung and Hyundai are among those testifying before

They'll be asked whether they were pressured by the president

or her close friend, Choi Soon-sil, to donate millions of dollars to two

foundations in exchange for special treatment.

Nice to see you. Feel us in on what is going on? This is indeed

unprecedented. I mean, eight corporate titans in a Parliamentary

enquiry and this is the latest chapter in President Park Geun-hye

ongoing scandal, she is accused of colluding with a confidant. The

leaders of these biggest businesses in South Korea are being questioned

before an enquiry of corruption, Samsung, LG, Hyundai Motor and five

other conglomerates. They have denied the accusations in this

Parliamentary investigation. These corporate titans have never appeared

in public. They are normally not seen and do not speak in public but

today they raised their right-hand and promised to tell the truth and

then they were subject to what they are not used to, hard questioning.

The moment of truth is today. President Park Geun-hye faces an

impeachment vote. Huge demonstrations have called for her

to read and her rating has plunged to just 4%. Thank you very much

indeed. Amazon has revealed

plans for a grocery shop where customers will instead pay

for the goods they have selected The Just Walk Out shopping

experience uses the same types of technologies found

in self-driving cars. The system detects when items

are taken or returned to shelves and tracks them in a virtual

shopping trolley. Once the shopper leaves the store,

their Amazon account will be charged Sounds simple. Collaboration to stop

images and videos inappropriate to spread on their side. The database

will be used to screen violent and stop material to be shared. Xi

Jinping and that Cameron went to a pub. It has been bought in

Buckinghamshire, near mere. Mr Cameron took Xi Jinping in October

2000 15. I have not been there for a pint but it is near me. Markets in

Asia are rallying high today. The Dow Jones closing on a record high.

Monetary policy in the US sees rates going higher and the dollar goes

higher. Looking at the currencies... The Dow Jones up by 45 points. That

is all from World Business Report for the time being, we will discuss

some of those stories mentioned when we look at what is going on in the

news today, in a couple of minutes. See you then.