:00:00. > :00:18.Now on BBC News, all the latest business news live from Singapore.
:00:19. > :00:44.Welcome to Asia Business Report. South Korea's giant family-owned
:00:45. > :00:51.conglomerates once again in hot water. Let's take a look at this
:00:52. > :00:55.man. This is the chairman of Lotte. He will be summoned in a few hours
:00:56. > :00:59.by prosecutors who have been looking into bribery allegations against
:01:00. > :01:03.South Korea's largest retailer. It is not the first to be investigated
:01:04. > :01:09.by authorities in recent years. Earlier, a consultant in Sol Davis
:01:10. > :01:17.more details. It really starts with the succession crisis. -- in Seoul
:01:18. > :01:21.gave us more. The two brothers, the younger brother, he is 60 and his
:01:22. > :01:27.father is in his 90s. The founder of the group. The two brothers were
:01:28. > :01:30.struggling for control in the event of the father no longer being
:01:31. > :01:36.competent to run the group. This became a very public fight when the
:01:37. > :01:43.younger brother won control of the South Korean part of the group.
:01:44. > :01:48.Originally, Lotte started in Japan, although it is Korean, but gradually
:01:49. > :01:56.the Korean side has gotten more and more powerful. So having control of
:01:57. > :02:02.the group, the older brother then tried to manipulate the fact that in
:02:03. > :02:07.the end the group is controlled by some obscure companies in Japan. So
:02:08. > :02:14.the fight was a public fight continued over several months. So
:02:15. > :02:17.naturally the authorities got very interested in many respects. It is
:02:18. > :02:21.interesting that the authorities have gotten interested. We know it
:02:22. > :02:27.Lotte is the biggest retailer, huge department stores all over Sol. The
:02:28. > :02:33.fact that this seems to be the government going after people who
:02:34. > :02:40.have their hands in every part of South Korea's economy. What impact
:02:41. > :02:49.might this have on South Korea? Lotte is not unique. Over the course
:02:50. > :02:55.of the 21st-century, about 14 have been investigated, about one per
:02:56. > :03:01.year, and sometimes investigated twice. So it is pretty well half of
:03:02. > :03:08.the course but the authorities are always watching what the chairman at
:03:09. > :03:12.doing, looking for embezzlement and other things -- what the chairman
:03:13. > :03:19.are doing. That is what they are doing when they investigate. In
:03:20. > :03:21.other business days, Unilever is buying an American company that
:03:22. > :03:26.makes environmentally friendly home personal care goods. The consumer
:03:27. > :03:31.goods giant is essentially taking over seven generation, which makes
:03:32. > :03:37.items like recycled paper tissue and temperance. Report said the deal was
:03:38. > :03:44.worth between 800 million and $1 billion. Barack Obama has asked
:03:45. > :03:47.China to speed up its efforts to address industrial capacity. He
:03:48. > :03:52.called for China to develop a level playing field for all companies and
:03:53. > :03:56.to advance an orderly transition to a market determined exchange rate.
:03:57. > :04:05.President Obama made the comments when he meet -- when he met with the
:04:06. > :04:08.Premier Li Keqiang. Russian President Putin has tightened his
:04:09. > :04:11.grip on power following the parliamentary elections. When it
:04:12. > :04:16.comes to the economy, it is a dire situation. According to the World
:04:17. > :04:23.Bank, its economy has shrunk from just over $2.2 trillion in 2013 to
:04:24. > :04:30.1.3 tree in dollars in 2015. That is a 14% drop -- $1.3 trillion. The
:04:31. > :04:35.finance ministry warned that it is fast running out of rainyday fund.
:04:36. > :04:42.Earlier, our correspondent from the Asia business union asked if they
:04:43. > :04:46.were concerned. It is one thing about Russians and the Russian
:04:47. > :04:54.country in general, after the Second World War, and a country facing
:04:55. > :04:57.strong difficulties and external threats, most people start to
:04:58. > :05:05.mobilise a lot. Nobody is saying what things will happen, but we are
:05:06. > :05:11.being forced to go from being commodities based in the economy to
:05:12. > :05:15.more efficiency. So now the country and political leaders understand
:05:16. > :05:20.very well that they have to do everything very efficiently, and
:05:21. > :05:26.also innovations, or to my station, and other things that can really
:05:27. > :05:32.rise up the economy -- or to my session. When you say they have to
:05:33. > :05:35.do things efficiently, what will they do with those two interlinked
:05:36. > :05:45.reserves? I cannot give you the exact plan of action -- with those
:05:46. > :05:50.dwindling reserves. The economy is falling, and it is quite bad. But
:05:51. > :05:57.when we are speaking about the external and global threat, it is
:05:58. > :06:02.like Christmas sale. Every 50%. Because of the sanctions that have
:06:03. > :06:05.been placed on Russia by the Western economies, is Russia now having to
:06:06. > :06:11.look increasingly to Asia? How's that relationship looking? Well, it
:06:12. > :06:16.is exactly what we are working for. It is one of the main things we are
:06:17. > :06:25.targeting out. Russia is a big country and half Europe and have
:06:26. > :06:28.Asia. -- half Asia. When the western part makes sanctions towards us, we
:06:29. > :06:32.are looking forward to more partnership with China, India, and
:06:33. > :06:41.south-east Asian countries like Vietnam, Singapore and Cambodia.
:06:42. > :06:46.Let's turn now to the tech sector. Go pro is set to debut new products
:06:47. > :06:52.including a drone that may make or break the company. After going
:06:53. > :06:58.public in mid-2014, its share price has tumbled, 790% of its valuation.
:06:59. > :07:01.The company has faced increased connotation and struggled to come up
:07:02. > :07:08.with a new key product -- bruising 90%. It is not unusual to hear of
:07:09. > :07:12.firms facing an uphill battle with expansion, part of the e-commerce
:07:13. > :07:15.landscape which is considered to be in its infancy. One business in
:07:16. > :07:21.Thailand is helping companies reach their customers faster. We are told
:07:22. > :07:35.more about this start-up success. E-commerce is an end to end
:07:36. > :07:42.e-commerce solutions provider. It means any, is anywhere any time --
:07:43. > :07:50.A-commerce. It is not just the consumer, it is as Mrs, governments,
:07:51. > :08:00.and how do people transact online. -- it is businesses. We focused on
:08:01. > :08:06.Thailand first, and how can we help take a brand and help them connect
:08:07. > :08:10.with their end consumer. We were building the website, the e-commerce
:08:11. > :08:15.site for them, their marketing strategy, fulfilment, warehousing,
:08:16. > :08:20.and all of their deliveries. 23 years back, it will take over 14
:08:21. > :08:24.days to deliver a package in Southeast Asia. Our vision was to
:08:25. > :08:28.fix that. But we knew that once we were on this mission to fix
:08:29. > :08:32.e-commerce and the infrastructure, we knew we had to fix not only the
:08:33. > :08:37.payment gateways, the delivery, all the way up to marketing and content
:08:38. > :08:44.and advertising. We saw the opportunity to fix what we call in
:08:45. > :08:54.to end as incredibly important. The reason why aCommerce will do any
:08:55. > :08:59.e-commerce that existed online. We are setting up fulfilment centres,
:09:00. > :09:05.delivery fleet, and for us, we have over 100 people in basically our
:09:06. > :09:09.development hub in Angkor, where we are building the platform to scale
:09:10. > :09:15.across the region -- Angkor. We are spread across Thailand, Indonesia,
:09:16. > :09:20.the Philippines and now just setting up Singapore. We are a cross for
:09:21. > :09:23.different markets. We have been cash positive in Thailand a couple of
:09:24. > :09:29.times this year, and in Indonesia as well once. Each market has its own
:09:30. > :09:34.dynamics, but we like Thailand because it really sets a great
:09:35. > :09:38.testing land for what a real model for a market would be like in
:09:39. > :09:43.Indonesia. For us as a company, we want to be able to provide a sickly
:09:44. > :09:47.a platform for an operating system to help brands likely be able to
:09:48. > :09:48.sell across all different forms of e-commerce across the region --
:09:49. > :09:58.basically a platform. The study's stock exchange will be
:09:59. > :10:02.in focus today after suffering its worst and you disruption in at least
:10:03. > :10:08.five years -- Australia. It was forced open late and shot early due
:10:09. > :10:12.to a highway great. It happened two months into the new CEO's tenure,
:10:13. > :10:18.who has apologised for the outage. Let's take a look the markets.
:10:19. > :10:22.Japan's Nikkei has opened lower after a public holiday on Monday.
:10:23. > :10:26.That is essentially due to a slightly stronger yen. We are seeing
:10:27. > :10:31.Australia functioning today, down slightly as well. That is it for
:10:32. > :10:38.today's Asia Business Report. Thank you for watching.
:10:39. > :10:43.A man suspected of planting bombs in New York and New Jersey has been