22/11/2016 Asia Business Report

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

China's company posts big earnings, and to look at what is driving

growth for the social media giant Weibo. Using farmers' grain pain.

Rice is subsidised. -- easing. Good morning, a shot. Hello, world. It's

Tuesday. Glad you could join us for this edition of Asia Business Report

-- Asia. China's answer to Twitter, Weibo, is doing substantially better

than its troubled western counterpart. The Chinese blogging

firm posted a net income of $32 million in the third quarter. That

is more than double the $40 million it earned in the same period last

year. It is forecasting revenue to grow by at least 50% in the fourth

quarter. As of September, Weibo had 132 million users. Earlier, I spoke

with a China market research and asked him what has been driving

Weibo's success. I think they have made some key changes to their

business over the year. The first thing they did is scrap the

character limit. Consumers can have longer conversations on the platform

now. They have also added a lot more content. You can live stream video

and it is easier to share and create videos and pictures on the site.

What can Weibo sustain this interest, especially with more

competition on the landscape? I think it is a very competitive

market. There are a lot of players. At the same time, they are a known

quantity and consumers know them and they have been around long time.

They are comfortable with the platform and like the new features.

I think they can sustain this. You have the monthly active users for

Weibo continuing to rise in the high double digits of more than 30%,

compared to its US counterpart, Twitter, which is in the single

digits. Do you think it is also in culture of the Chinese that they

have the edge in terms of microblogging sites? Yes, I think

there is an edgy. People are looking for ways to interact socially active

Internet. They do not have a lot of face-to-face social opportunities so

Weibo create a platform for that. Especially now that people can have

a longer conversation. Twitter is very limited in that regard.

Two weeks after being elected as the next president of the United States,

Donald Trump has released a video on things his administration would like

to achieve, and withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership rates

highly. I have asked my transition team

to develop a list of executive actions we can take on day one,

to restore our laws and bring On trade, I am going to issue

a notification of intent to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership,

a potential disaster Instead, we will negotiate fair,

bilateral trade deals that bring jobs and industry back

onto American shores. That was US president-elect Donald

Trump. He will be in office at the White House next year. Inauguration

ceremony is scheduled to take place on the 20th of January. Malaysia.

Posting the Formula 1 Grand Prix after the current agreement expires

in 2018. A government official said the event is expensive and no longer

attractive. The decision was made following declining ticket sellers

as well as television viewership. Malaysia first started hosting the

race in Kuala Lumpur, the capital, back in 1999 -- ticket sales.

Furniture technology has become a buzzword. The sector attracted $2.9

billion in global investments. In the third quarter alone this year,

much more in the pipeline. Singapore is hoping to be a leader in this

field, pitching itself as a finance technology hub. It is planning to

create its own digital currency. To find about the strategy, our Asia

business correspondent spoke to be well's first chief fintech officer

here in Singapore. Singapore has really been pushing

them. There is so much hype about it. What is fintech? We love hype,

because it gives attention to the topic. Any serious note, when apply

technology to insurance, retail, corporate, and make it more

efficient, that is the true definition of fintech -- on a

serious note. To me, that is much more meaningful and much more

substantial for understanding fintech. Why is Singapore so keen to

push fintech? What is Singapore getting out of this? We have a very

vibrant market centre and we are a true leader when it comes to

financial services. If we apply technology to that equation, it

becomes long-term much more sustainable and bigger than what it

is today. Fintech becomes part of that vibrancy of Singapore as a

truly world-class financial centre. But we are standing in the centre of

Singapore's financial centre. All around, I can see the big brand

names, the big banks. Isn't fintech going to spell the end of

traditional banking? When it started in silicon valley, when it shifted

out of the US, it became a nebulous story. Fintech is helping banks to

succeed. That is a huge difference. When you see a lot of fintech here,

they are helping the banks. A large percentage of the portfolio are in

the business of supporting banks. You are the well's first chief

fintech officer. That is quite a weighty position to be in -- world's

first. I see more and more fintech offices coming in. At the end of the

day, it has to be sustainable, and I have always said that. We will not

be calling it financial services, we will be calling it fintech

everything. That is how the future will look like. That was the world's

first chief fintech officer. Rice farmers in Thailand have been hit

hard by a sharp fall in global prices. To help them out, the

military government has stepped in by spending more than $1 billion on

a rice subsidy scheme. Thailand was once the world's leader exporter for

rice, but lost the status after the collapse of another subsidy scheme

which was managed by the government of the former prime and estate

Yingluck Shinawatra, who is facing big fines and criminal charges. --

Prime Minister. Jasmine rice. It is both a proud symbol of Thai food

quality and an essential source of income for these farmers in

north-eastern Thailand. And right now, they are not earning nearly

enough from growing it. TRANSLATION: Before, life was good.

I could buy things without having to think too much. But now, if I want

to buy something, I have to think very hard. The price of everything

seems to go up except for rice. One problem this year is heavy rain. It

has made the rice to moist. And running out of places to dry it.

Thailand also produces too much rice, two inefficiently, and must

export a large proportion into a volatile world market. But farmers

are a big constituency, and with an election due within a year or two,

the government has been forced to help. Five years ago, this much

rice, about a killer, would have then these farmers close to US 50

cents. But after the recent dramatic falls in the price even of

high-quality jasmine rice like this, they need to grow it three times as

much just to earn the same amount of money. That is proving very awkward

for the military government because the plight of these farmers has

forced it to offer a generous subsidy. The very thing it can dent

in the government it ousted two years ago. And for which it was

fined and charged for Mark Prior Minister Yingluck Shinawatra -- for

Mark Prior Minister. She argued the charges were political. The hardship

of rice farmers now has given her a golden opportunity to showcase her

concern for them. She has been selling their rice directly to

consumers in Bangkok in a not very subtle dig at the pennypinching

generals. Unsurprisingly, the scheme made her hugely popular with

farmers. It was also staggeringly expensive. It has given the military

a convenient stick with which to beat her party and the in the courts

and weaken its election prospects. The return of rice stockpiles in

Thailand warehouses is a reminder of the farmers' continued dependence on

subsidies and the long-term need to reduce their numbers, whichever

government is in charge in Bangkok. A quick look at the markets, and

Tokyo stocks are in negative territory at this hour. Investors

will assess the impact of the earthquake earlier today. The all

ordinaries is up a 4% due to rising oil and commodities prices. The Hang

Seng also up by 0.6%. Thank you for invested your time with us. I'm Rico

Hizon.