21/01/2016 Asia Business Report

Now on BBC News, all the latest business news live from Singapore.

Asian stocks back the trend after a day of turmoil sparked by plunging

oil prices. And the signal all the noise. With the promise of big data

make a difference to the economy? Welcome to Asia Business Report.

Regional stock markets are all up this morning after what was dubbed a

Black Wednesday amongst analysts as stocks dived to their lowest levels

since May 2009 on Wednesday with investors spooked by the relentless

slide in oil prices. UK, French and Japanese shares fell by more than

20%. Wall Street had 500 point shaved off the Dow Jones in the

first hour of trade. It is those worries about oil, China and the

Federal Reserve that sparked the selloffs. This is how the US ended.

They recovered some of their steeper losses. Asian shares this Thursday

have all opened higher. We are seeing the Nikkei up of 1%. The Hang

Seng has opened higher as well, and although that is not reflecting yet.

We know China's markets are open now as well. We can get an update from

our correspondent at the Hong Kong stock exchange. We are seeing this

pickup in Hong Kong as well, I believe. What have traders there'd

been telling you in terms of this volatility in the markets? The Hong

Kong shares have just opened, 1% higher in line with what we have

been seeing in Japan and Australia. In the last few seconds, though,

those games have started to be paid. The Hang Seng index now up 0.7%. We

will have to see if those games are managed -- games are held onto. I

have been speaking to traders this morning who say this is a moderately

more optimistic trading day, but they say there is not much

conviction among investors. That means this very modest recovery may

not last. One of the traders even refer to this as a possible dead cat

bounce, a term coined in the 1980s to describe a short lived recovery.

Especially during an overall environment where stocks were still

falling. We will have to see throughout the rest of the day

whether that indeed is what happened overnight. Again, the suggestion

this volatility might continue. Certainly a fragile and cautious

recovery in the market. A lot of economists have been talking

recently about a correction from those highs. The Nikkei is down over

20% since its 2015 high. Is this the start of a bear market? Certainly

for the Japanese market, it is already be start of a bear market.

There are similar worries in Hong Kong as well. Some of the reports

from economists are expecting the Hong Kong dollar, which is tightly

pegged to the US dollar but still manages to trade within a fairly

narrow band, to become weaker within that band. Possibly prompting the

central bank year to intervene to maintain and defend that peg. One of

the reasons the stock market fell by almost 4% yesterday is there where

rumours or thoughts being bandied about that perhaps that peg can't be

defended. We will leave it there. Thank you. Let's take a look at

India, which is forecast to make the world's fastest-growing economy this

year. That is according to the International Monetary Fund. With

China's stole the economy, the India's central bank governor says

their economy is heading in the right direction to become the engine

of global growth. He speak to a reporter at the world economic Forum

in Davos. I think we are much smaller than China. How that growth

translates into dollars, we will not produce the same as China. But I

have no doubt that we will produce an increasing amount of goods for

other countries over the next 5-10 years. I think growth will pick up

from here. We will get stronger. Eventually, we will be of a size

that China is today, and have the ability to say we can replace

Chinese growth. Just not now. Do you have a sense of when that might be?

That is an interesting thing to claim. We are 10- 15 years behind

China in terms of our reformed path. We are not going down the same road

as China. We are doing different things. We may not be the

manufacturing hub of the world, but we will surly do a lot more

manufacturing there we do certainly. But we may be the service

hub of the world and we may be where people get medical operations done.

People may consultancy services. We would do

things differently. They even our great to decorate and the fact that

in terms of what we are providing the world, we should be in a similar

position cuts which could affect its Asian

operations. More than 1000 jobs are expected to be axed across its

investment bank. If confirmed, it will be the first big strategic move

made by the new chief executive. His predecessor had promised to cut 7000

jobs over three years. The digital universe is growing at a

rapid rate. At the world economic Forum, business leaders are

scratching their heads over how to analyse massive amounts of

information. And how much protection they should give their consumers. We

now report on the debate over big data.

All of us are producing data all of the time. Without even knowing it.

The frequency and quantity with which it is being generated have

ended the title big data. -- and it. There is so much companies are

springing up with the sole aim of sifting through it. The best use of

the data ironically is to make it as small as possible because consuming

all of that information is impossible. I think a lot of

technologies can package big data in a way that takes the mass and sheer

size out of the equation and points you to the right information at the

time you needed to make the right decision. In 2013, under a quarter

of digital data was considered useful. By 2020, it will be over a

third. Here at Davos, collecting business cards is very much part of

the way people interact. But what businesses do with this

information, how they collated and use it, even whether they feel free

to pass it on, these are becoming very relevant questions. Some of the

algorithms are getting so sophisticated in their ability to

not just predict where we are going to be, what we will like, etc. The

choices we make. But to use that to influence ours. I think it is in

that moment I become uncomfortable -- influence us. The explosion of

data has many possible applications, especially in the health sector. The

challenge is to control how it is used. We need to move to a world

where people who use data professionally have systems which we

call accountable systems, which track not only what you are doing

with the data at why you are doing it. So for example at a patient, I

can go to a hospital website and not only download my data also see a

list of people who have looked at it and see what is going on. In Davos,

business leaders place a premium on the privacy of their conversations.

Many consumers now want the same level of control.

Let's take a look at those markets again. We can show you what the

Chinese markets are doing and how they have opened. They both opened

lower cost up that is defying the trend from the rest of the region,

as we are seeing gains from any other markets including Hong Kong,

which is opened up over 1%, and this is essentially reversing what is

being called a Black Wednesday because we did see huge selloffs on

Wednesday. But this Thursday morning, we are seeing the markets

turnaround. Some investors saying there is perhaps bargain-hunting on,

the sentiment is still very fragile. That is it for this edition of Asian

business report. They give are watching.

You are watching BBC News. The headlines: Billions of dollars have

been wiped off stock market around the world because of growing concern

about the economic slowdown. But early