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Now on BBC News, all the latest business news live from Singapore. | :00:00. | :00:14. | |
Thailand's dreams of economic prosperity will as the country faces | :00:15. | :00:21. | |
its first -- worst drought in decades. And taking off. The global | :00:22. | :00:26. | |
drone industry is predicted to be worth more than $100 billion by | :00:27. | :00:27. | |
2020. Hello, and welcome to Asia Business | :00:28. | :00:40. | |
Report. It has been almost two years since the military seized power in | :00:41. | :00:44. | |
Thailand. It promised to boost the country's ailing economy, outdated | :00:45. | :00:50. | |
today is expected to show it is still on shaky ground. The | :00:51. | :00:53. | |
south-east Asian nation has been struggling with its worst drought in | :00:54. | :00:57. | |
decades. It is crucial export sector has been shrinking due to weak | :00:58. | :01:01. | |
overseas demand, and foreign investment plummeted 78% last year. | :01:02. | :01:08. | |
So what can Thailand's military government do? Earlier I asked an | :01:09. | :01:15. | |
economist with the World Bank. I think on the ground, especially | :01:16. | :01:18. | |
capital and infrastructure expenditure is not rolling out at | :01:19. | :01:21. | |
the pace they had hoped for. Getting that under way might unleash some of | :01:22. | :01:25. | |
that consumption, late and consumption, as well as tourism. At | :01:26. | :01:29. | |
of course tourism is subject to many other factors as well. Indeed, | :01:30. | :01:34. | |
political stability being one of them, and we have had two years of | :01:35. | :01:37. | |
military government taskbar. A little bit of stability, some | :01:38. | :01:42. | |
critics say, but we also have a weak global economy. Should we be worried | :01:43. | :01:48. | |
about most? I think one of the lingering risk that remains in the | :01:49. | :01:51. | |
picture is China's economy egg and flailing over the weekend, with data | :01:52. | :01:56. | |
coming out showing that China had weakened again. But of course has an | :01:57. | :01:59. | |
impact on supply chains. One particular boost would be if Japan | :02:00. | :02:07. | |
does a big boost, and their auto manufacturing in Thailand somehow | :02:08. | :02:10. | |
benefits from greater investment, so on and so forth. It might be | :02:11. | :02:17. | |
something to look out for. Turning to Japan, Prime Minister shims are | :02:18. | :02:22. | |
they will reportedly delay plans for a another hike in the sales tax | :02:23. | :02:26. | |
originally set for April next year. -- Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The | :02:27. | :02:32. | |
sales tax was supposed to go up to 10% from the current 8%. | :02:33. | :02:37. | |
A view more signs of slowing growth in the world's second largest | :02:38. | :02:42. | |
economy, China. Figures from the weekend showed industrial output | :02:43. | :02:45. | |
jumped 6% in April when compared to one year ago. That is down from the | :02:46. | :02:50. | |
month of March. Meanwhile retail sales rose 10% in the month of | :02:51. | :02:54. | |
April, but that is also a lower figure when compared to retail | :02:55. | :02:59. | |
activity in March. Drones, or unmanned aircraft, are | :03:00. | :03:02. | |
banned or heavily restricted in the airspace of most countries. It now | :03:03. | :03:05. | |
Singapore is working with Airbus to see if they can develop drones with | :03:06. | :03:09. | |
commercial or industrial applications. One idea is to have | :03:10. | :03:14. | |
them delivering packages around the city. John Price from Airbus | :03:15. | :03:18. | |
Helicopters explains the project. Drones today are more like toys. So | :03:19. | :03:34. | |
the failure rates of drones are far lower than the ones of aircraft. The | :03:35. | :03:39. | |
main challenge is to bring the drone to a safety level that allows it to | :03:40. | :03:43. | |
fly over cities, to fly over citizens, without being feared. It | :03:44. | :03:50. | |
is a key point. We have to be safe. This is our DNA and aerospace. Then | :03:51. | :03:56. | |
the exact application, in logistics or beyond, is not exactly defined. I | :03:57. | :04:00. | |
think it is a bit premature to say that this drone will deliver the | :04:01. | :04:04. | |
parcel to your doorstep or in a central station. Initially, we are | :04:05. | :04:09. | |
studying it with what we call the parcel station, which is the area | :04:10. | :04:16. | |
where the drone will land, and will drop, or deliver the parcel, so it | :04:17. | :04:21. | |
will not be a doorstep initially. Then we can think of many other | :04:22. | :04:28. | |
applications, in the logistics and the other domains. I think it is | :04:29. | :04:31. | |
quite realistic, otherwise we would not launch this project. But it is a | :04:32. | :04:35. | |
challenge, and we like challenges. I think it will not take long to | :04:36. | :04:40. | |
realise how credible and how feasible it is. Let's call it an 18 | :04:41. | :04:47. | |
month project, to make things short. We intend to fly in 17 months. We | :04:48. | :04:53. | |
will run a six-month light period, so that is quite sometime, to get | :04:54. | :04:57. | |
experience, to get feedback, to get benefit from what we will see. The | :04:58. | :05:01. | |
challenge remains the same, safety. Safety, safety, safety. | :05:02. | :05:06. | |
As you saw in that interview, advances are being made in trying to | :05:07. | :05:10. | |
use drones commercially. Right now the market is estimated to be worth | :05:11. | :05:15. | |
about $2 billion, but it is expected to balloon to as much as $127 | :05:16. | :05:23. | |
billion by 2020. Earlier, I spoke with Richard Skinner from the | :05:24. | :05:25. | |
consulting group PricewaterhouseCoopers, and asked | :05:26. | :05:28. | |
him which industries could potentially benefit most from the | :05:29. | :05:33. | |
use of drones. There is many applications that we can use drones | :05:34. | :05:36. | |
for, from a commercial point of view. These typically encompass | :05:37. | :05:42. | |
those wearing the past, either we just couldn't do anything, or it was | :05:43. | :05:46. | |
dangerous for people to get involved, or just quite difficult | :05:47. | :05:50. | |
and expensive. If we think about a few examples, agriculture is a good | :05:51. | :05:54. | |
one, as we move agriculture to a more data centric yield enhancing | :05:55. | :06:00. | |
industry, I think that drones have a terrific part to play. But there are | :06:01. | :06:05. | |
still lots of challenges, because there are regulations in place, and | :06:06. | :06:08. | |
they are not consistent throughout the world. The regulation point, I | :06:09. | :06:13. | |
think it is both a challenge and an enabler, a bit like the technology | :06:14. | :06:17. | |
hurdles that we also need to get over. As countries start to put | :06:18. | :06:22. | |
better regulation in place and understand it and at the same time | :06:23. | :06:25. | |
protect us, I think that will actually enable the industry to go | :06:26. | :06:32. | |
-- grow. Colleagues who wrote our report over in | :06:33. | :06:34. | |
PricewaterhouseCoopers Poland, I think that is one of the most | :06:35. | :06:37. | |
advanced countries in the world in terms of regulations, and that is | :06:38. | :06:41. | |
helping open up the commercial side of the industry. Some of the other | :06:42. | :06:45. | |
countries include Singapore and South Africa, where they are | :06:46. | :06:47. | |
drafting legislation for commercial drone use. You may find yourself | :06:48. | :06:51. | |
coming up against labour unions, people with job losses. This is the | :06:52. | :06:58. | |
exciting thing about drones as well. That $130 billion number, that is | :06:59. | :07:02. | |
not just the value of the drone. This is also putting into context | :07:03. | :07:05. | |
all the other things that go around it. This could be the software, the | :07:06. | :07:10. | |
date analytics, and importantly, the people who write navigating the | :07:11. | :07:15. | |
drones, who understands the date and do something with it. So there is a | :07:16. | :07:21. | |
huge opportunity for people as well. People in India are being consulted | :07:22. | :07:24. | |
about a new law which would control how anybody publishes or uses maps. | :07:25. | :07:29. | |
If it is past it will become illegal to publish map related information | :07:30. | :07:35. | |
without a licence from a government agency. Anybody breaking the law | :07:36. | :07:37. | |
could face a multimillion dollar fine or even imprisonment. The | :07:38. | :07:42. | |
government says it would protect the country's security. | :07:43. | :07:47. | |
In a country where the number of people owning one of these is | :07:48. | :07:51. | |
rocketing, providing online maps is a big and growing business. But if | :07:52. | :07:56. | |
this bill goes through, nobody from Google to the smallest businesses | :07:57. | :07:59. | |
will be able to use the map services in India without a licence. The | :08:00. | :08:04. | |
government will control how anybody uses maps online. For example, we | :08:05. | :08:10. | |
are off to meet an interviewee. So I want to book a cab using a taxi apps | :08:11. | :08:14. | |
service. I am sharing my location with the service to find a cab, but | :08:15. | :08:18. | |
if this bill becomes law, this could become illegal unless the up as a | :08:19. | :08:31. | |
licence. -- app has a licence. So, this is where I need to go. Even the | :08:32. | :08:39. | |
map the drivers used to navigate would be illegal. What if I take a | :08:40. | :08:45. | |
picture and uploaded? I am sharing crucial mapping information, and | :08:46. | :08:48. | |
would need a licence to do that. This is one of the reasons why India | :08:49. | :08:52. | |
is proposing the new law. It wants to control how the country's | :08:53. | :08:56. | |
boundaries are detected, and the government says it will protect | :08:57. | :09:00. | |
India, because it maps show sensitive locations that could be | :09:01. | :09:03. | |
used by terrorist groups to plan terrorist attacks. So, we have | :09:04. | :09:11. | |
navigated to my destination. I have come to meet someone who is a member | :09:12. | :09:15. | |
of an online campaign called cup back save the cup Acma. -- Save the | :09:16. | :09:24. | |
Map. For larger companies, it is much easier to deal with the | :09:25. | :09:27. | |
processes that the government is asking for. For small start-ups, | :09:28. | :09:31. | |
they might not even be in the game of getting information about | :09:32. | :09:38. | |
sensitive places. But the act creates an overall situation where | :09:39. | :09:42. | |
everybody in this space is threatened, that they might be | :09:43. | :09:45. | |
charged, they might be sued, under this particular act. The bill is | :09:46. | :09:51. | |
still a draft, and the government is inviting opinions on it until the | :09:52. | :09:54. | |
fourth of June. Ministers have been speaking to the press and insisting | :09:55. | :09:57. | |
that it will not create hurdles for businesses if it creep -- if it | :09:58. | :10:01. | |
becomes law. A quick look at the markets before | :10:02. | :10:06. | |
we go. Lots of them have opened, including Japan's Nick Hay and | :10:07. | :10:12. | |
Australia's ASX. We can see the Japanese market gaining, due to some | :10:13. | :10:15. | |
bargain-hunting, even though we saw Wall Street closed lower on Friday. | :10:16. | :10:19. | |
We had that less than enthusiastic dart from China as well. -- data | :10:20. | :10:26. | |
from China. Oil prices under pressure, and there is lots talk | :10:27. | :10:30. | |
about the yen. That is it for this edition of Asia Business Report. | :10:31. | :10:32. | |
Thank you for watching. | :10:33. | :10:34. |