09/01/2017 Asia Business Report

You're watching BBC World News. Four Israeli soldiers have been killed in

a track attack in Jerusalem. The driver of the vehicle were shot

dead. The Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu believes the attacker was

inspired by it Islamic State. US Defence Secretary Ash Carter called

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forcing cars to swerve out of its way -- spool of wire. Luckily no

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with us here on BBC World News. And the top story for you in the UK, a

24-hour strike by London Underground workers is under way, it is by

drivers and station staff about job losses and ticket office closures.

More from me but first hearing is Sharanjit. Chrysler Fiat pours $1

billion into US factories and moved some production from Mexico. And a

decade since this little gadget changed the way we communicate, what

is in store for the next ten years of the smartphone? Hello, welcome to

Asia Business Report. Another car maker makes a huge investment in the

United States. Fiat Chrysler is investing $1 billion in America,

including modifying a plant in Michigan which will make pickup

trucks manufactured in Mexico. The move comes as the President-elect

Donald Trump pressures the auto industry to hire workers and produce

vehicles north of the border. Last week Ford announced it was

cancelling plans for a factory in Mexico and will build the cars in

the US. All of this comes as one of the world's biggest auto shows'

where car giant showcase their latest products. Earlier I spoke

with a spokesperson for the auto industry and his reaction to the

Fiat Chrysler and Mt. They have followed suit with what Ford has

done and some of the automakers we have heard from, so there seems to

be a new awareness that if you are planning and had big ideas to roll

out Mexico -based production, maybe you are not going to do that now,

you will keep it in the US. It is startling given he is not even the

president yet. Is this becoming a long-term change or trained in car

manufacturing? I think Donald Trump will come into office and he will

look for smart ways to keep jobs in America. At the same time you have

to be careful for unintended consequences, always the bugaboo of

government agencies. If you keep the jobs here and force up prices of

cars and make them uncompetitive with cars coming from elsewhere,

companies building the cars in a different way, you might end up

hurting companies because they simply cannot make cars affordable

for Americans, then you will have companies laying people off not

because cars are built elsewhere but they cannot sell enough to employ

people. Economics is interesting. Usually there is cause and effect.

And you can't do one thing and assume an upside. There is almost

always repercussion somewhere else. This show has taken on political

overtones as the President-elect Donald Trump targets the car

industry, so is it something a lot of people are talking about? Yes,

there is a buzz about the impact on drum is having on the car industry

and how much he has had before he has been officially sworn as

president and there is definitely apprehension across the country as

to how big an impact he will have on plans, whether it is building plants

in Mexico or redistributing where the cars are built and how they are

shipped, there is a thinker little uncertainty that was unfair to

months ago -- that wasn't there two months ago because they don't know

what the man in charge is going to do.

The shares in Australian miners are down this morning on forecasts of

lower iron ore prices. The government expects average iron ore

prices for the next two years to drop nearly half. Current spot

prices of the commodity used in making steel are at about US $80 per

ton and iron ore is Australia's biggest commodity export.

Over in Mexico, nearly 10,000 people are taking to the streets in the

western area to protest the country's gasoline price hike. They

are enraged by a 20% jump in fuel prices which were announced as part

of the government deregulation of the energy sector.

Jakarta is known for having some of the world's worst traffic and to

reduce the number of motorbikes the government has made it three times

more expensive to register a vehicle. It also wants to raise

money for its infrastructure programme.

Jamal al-Jamal is the first in his family to own a motorbike.

TRANSLATION: I borrowed money for the downpayment from a friend and

then I paid it off slowly and finally it was mine. I never dared

to dream I would own a motorbike. It is like a dream come true.

Motorbikes can be bought here with a deposit of as little as $50 US and

then paid off in monthly instalments. Nearly half a million

motorbikes are sold in Indonesia each year. In Jakarta, with very few

public transport options, people turn to motorbikes to try and get

around reasonably quickly. They can weave through the traffic but the

government is hoping that by making it harder and more expensive for

people to own a bike they will think twice about buying a bike and having

to add their bike to this already chaotic and traffic jams Streets.

But for this motorbike driver, owning a bike isn't a choice and he

is worried about how he is going to pay a 300% increase in this year's

registration fees. TRANSLATION: It is too much all at once. I don't

earn very much. Why didn't they make it a slow increase? It is going to

be very hard. I am struggling at the moment to earn enough to feed my

family, let alone pay registration. The government says it is going to

use the money that it gets from the increase to pay for its

infrastructure projects that include the building of a mass rapid

transport network, an underground subway train network that this city

has been talking about for decades but now the government says is

finally building it and is this the long-term answer to the traffic was?

-- woes? Ten years ago today the first ever iPhone was announced by

this man, the then chief executive of Apple, the late Steve Jobs, now

of course we know it took the world by storm and lots of other

manufacturers such as South Korea and Samsung have joined the game as

well, but smart phones have changed Alli lives dramatically, so just how

obsessed are we? Let's have a look. -- changed our lives dramatically.

No, I don't think it is possible right now to live without a

smartphone. I mean, it is possible, but it just becomes very difficult.

Right now everything is easy. I can do things without having to go

outside, like booking my movie tickets, or even interacting with my

friends, I don't have to make calls and everything because I cant just

send text messages. -- because I can. When I am not working usually I

am always on my phone. 22 hours a day. Almost every minute. Don't tell

my boss. When you see people walking around, they are on their phone.

They are reading their phone all the time. I don't think it is healthy. I

am sure we can all identify with that.

Well, of course, those figures are from EMarketeer, and I spoke with a

spokesperson from the firm and asked where the exports for smart phone

penetration come from. We are looking at Indonesia and the

Philippines as countries that will grow significantly. The most

significantly in 2017 in terms of smartphone adoption. We saw that

Taiwan and Singapore, nearly 90% of the population have smart phones.

Will it ever get to 100%, and why not? Well, I would say that it would

not get to 100%, because if you look at the population, and we estimate

smart usage among individuals of all, the youngest demographic is

where we wouldn't expect smartphone adoption to be happening, so that is

why we wouldn't reach the 100% anytime soon. When you look at

percentage mobile phone users, we will get close to that 100%, and

Taiwan will be one country that will come the closest, but we don't

expect 100% anytime before 2020. Aside from Taiwan and Singapore we

know Asia has a lot of developing markets. Will the technological

infrastructure ever get good enough to support more smartphones in this

region? Yes, I think it will, and if you look at the country like Vietnam

we see 3G is widely available and also 4G LTE availability is

improving, and we expect it to improve over the next few years, so

when that infrastructure is in place it really encourages smartphone

adoption, as well as wireless becoming more affordable. When do

you think 5G will be rolled out in these markets? I would say that is a

longer term prospects. Just because we have to get the infrastructure in

place before uptake really will occur.

Let's have a quick look at the market before we go because Japan's

market is closed. Australia continues to gain despite

the fall in iron ore prices being projected, leading to a fall in

miners. It is gaining as it follows the US. That is it for this edition

of Asia Business Report. Thank you for watching.

Four Israeli soldiers have been killed in a truck attack

The US defence secretary calls North Korea's missile programme

a threat and warns America is prepared to respond.