26/02/2014 Asia Business Report

because of a legal mistake. John Downey denies the charge of killing

four soldiers. Time for Asia Business Report. Shut down. One of

the world's largest Bitcoin exchanges in Japan goes offline,

raising concerns about the future of the virtual currency. Hong Kong's

stock exchange gets set to unveil its 2013 results later this

Wednesday. Welcome to the programme. One of the world's biggest exchanges

of Bitcoin has gone offline. MtGox in Tokyo has been troubled lately by

technical issues and recently stopped all customer withdrawals

after spotting what it ascribed as unusual activity. `` it described.

It's a big set back for supporters of the virtual currency, . In the

world of the internet, there is a currency that does not belong to any

nation called Bitcoin and like all currencies, it can be exchanged for

any other conventional currency like dollars or pounds. Except, one of

the biggest exchanges, MtGox, seems to have vanished, apparently losing

its customers hundreds of millions of dollars. I had quite a few

Bitcoin in their, which were worth $300,000. It looks like that has

appeared. MtGox, based in Tokyo did a `` based in Tokyo, has been

worried for some time. Do you think there has been fraud? The fact that

they are not talking about what has been going on and have deleted their

tweets from yesterday, something is suspicious. Other exchanges insist

that MtGox's problems are an exception and they are robust.

Bitcoin is money but not as we know it. You cannot hold it in your hand

like this. It is bullets on a screen and the price is volatile. Look how

much the exchange rate has fallen in just the last 24 hours. If the pound

did that, Britain would be bankrupt. What is really interesting about

Bitcoin is the way it poses a challenge to the big banks in that

it has the potential to become a cheap global network for

transmitting money anywhere, any time, so it could be dangerous to

the traditional banks as Amazon has been to shops. It's interesting as a

way of moving money around. It's faster and cheaper than any other

kind of payment network. Bitcoin, an online revolution in global money or

a bubble about to be popped? Perhaps, like the internet in its

early days, both. Several months ago, MtGox stopped being able to

withdraw money. In other words, if you had Bitcoin at that exchange and

you wanted to cash it into dollars, you would not able to get your money

out of MtGox. That was a red flag for me. You are basically a broker

for Bitcoin based investors in Singapore. Did they get nervous

after what happened to MtGox? What are you telling them? My clients

have been rather good about it. Yesterday, many people were buying

lots of Bitcoin because of the lower price. In general, they are

confident in the long`term value of Bitcoin. We saw the price peaked at

$1200. And then China clamps down at Bitcoin trading. It's now at $540.

Gear think this will be regulated in Asia? At some point, most likely.

Right now, we are under this fear of regulation. Many people talk about

Bitcoin as being in a free market. That's not the case at all. I would

call it a fear market. They are operating under the fear of their

market being closed, not being able to get a bank account. There is a

lot of talk about how consumers need to be wary of MtGox and that has

repercussions throughout the financial industry. `` wary of

Bitcoin. It's not truly a free market. If it was a free market, we

would be able to get bank accounts and insurance product. What would be

the right structure for the Bitcoin to operate on? A free market would

be ideal if we did not have this fear of possible regulation in the

future. We would have more venture capital flowing in and greater

ability to do deals with established companies like insurance companies

and banks. JP Morgan says it will cut 8000 jobs in its mortgage and

retail banking businesses, as those units continue to shrink. The bank,

which employs people across Asia, had already announced some of those

cuts but said it was eliminating more positions to save costs. Last

year, they laid off more than 16,500 tankers in these areas. In

Australia, a drought package worth more than $280 million has been

unveiled today by the federal government. The money will be used

to help farmers restructure their debts and survived the drought. It

will also help assist those in personal crisis. Many parts of the

country's eastern states of Queensland and New South Wales are

suffering extreme drought conditions often little rainfall over the last

two years. What can China and the US teach each other about social media?

Over the last 24 hours, we have heard LinkedIn is munching a Chinese

service. And in the opposite direction, Sina Corp is looking at

investing in America. Could Sina Weibo appeal to Western users? I

think so. Sina Weibo is the only player that is like Twitter in this

sector. I think that it's a good investment because right now, they

can make profits thanks to the traffic from Alibaba. Now that the

US stock market is doing well, all of the Chinese internet companies

are seeing at least 20% growth. It's a good investment chance. The

economic recovery is indeed gaining ground in Europe, according to the

European Commission, which revised up its growth forecast for 2014 and

2015. The region is expected to expand by 1.2% this year. The

Commissioner for the economy said that the worst of the crisis may now

be behind us. Hong Kong's economy is expected to have mainland momentum

in the final quarter of last year, despite signs of slowing growth in

mainland China full of the economy is likely to have grown by 3% in the

last quarter. That is according to one economic poll will stop the

financial Secretary will unveil the official numbers later this

Wednesday. Staying with Hong Kong, its stock exchange is set to reveal

its 2013 results. Analysts are expecting profits to be up by around

15%. Its fortunes have largely followed that of China. However,

it's still a far cry from the boom years when multibillion`dollar

listings from China drove earnings. This is China's top internationally

facing stock exchange. The Hong Kong stock market is home to some of the

world's biggest companies, including oil giants and mainland banks. After

years of headline grabbing listings, the market for initial public

offerings has grown cooler. This market analyst says that is because

of the Chinese government's efforts to moderate economic expansion. Much

of the information indicates that China's economy is slowing down.

It's not certain that China can maintain 7.5% economic growth this

year. He says investors are hoping that Chinese internet giant Alibaba

lists in Hong Kong this year. Its financial performance will also be

affected by the London metal exchange. The world's largest

commodities market is trying to win business in China. All of that would

help boost Hong Kong's spot in line. For years, this was the

destination of choice for the largest Chinese companies. As the

economy stabilises, investors hope the flow of new listings will begin

again. Asian stock markets have

strengthened slightly in mid` Wednesday trading, despite US

indices finishing low overnight. Thank you for joining us. And don't

forget, you can follow us on Twitter. Sport is coming up next.

This is BBC News. The