03/02/2017 Asia Business Report

The RMT is still fighting Southern on the same issue.

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

Preparing to meet the US president. Japan's by minister talks to the

head of the UN day about the auto industry. -- Hyundai.

And the owner of Snapchat files for share sales and hopes to raise $1

billion. It is Friday! Glad you could join us

on Asia Business Report. It is becoming to be known as the

Trump shock. Japanese businesses are nervous about criticism from the US

president. Shinzo Abe will meet him next week in Washington and in

preparation he has cut his putting, he is getting together with Toyota's

boss to ward off concerns about the auto industry. One of the main

issues is the Japanese yen. As you can see on this foreign exchange

dollar chart, a lot of volatility against the US dollar. The US

president has accused Japan of playing the money market to take

trade advantage, which Tokyo has denied. I asked an investor in Tokyo

what the feeling was amongst Japanese businesses. It is certainly

fair to say that Japanese CEOs as low as American CEOs are nervous

about getting called out by President Trump. If you look at the

history of the election cycle, President Trump is somebody who

tends to personalise his arguments and his debate and that means he

will call people out individually and callout companies. Yes, it is

wise to be concerned about this. As an overall issue for Japanese CEOs.

Will this mean than an increase in Japanese investments into the United

States, not only for the likes of to go to but also other industries? We

think it will. If you look at the $50 billion investment announced by

SoftBank, we think it's a trend where Japanese corporations and

politicians will be very focused on the American relationship. We are

really in a situation where we have to fight them from this perspective.

We have a president where we don't know what his policies will be and

we need to be on the bright side totally off the table with him for

those discussions. The Japanese yen, is Trump right to say that the

Japanese are using the money market to trade the yen to its advantage?

It is sometimes hard to separate the posturing from the true beliefs.

Interest rates really drive foreign exchange rates, certainly in the

currency markets. There is a mathematical relationship. It is

very hard to define currency manipulation, so it's a useful

political term if you will to rally support among the troops, but it is

hard to imagine someone has manipulated the currency. The

currency world is very fluid. On a second to second basis the currency

determines the market, not politicians. Sony has cut in half

its full-year profit forecast but it was also hit by a big rap down from

the movie business. Shares were down nearly 6% in Tokyo trade today as

the business offset its write-down concerns. Staying with the Japanese

technology industry, Panasonic is in trouble with US authorities. It says

it is avionic business is being investigated under the foreign

corrupt practices act. It didn't specify the nature of the

investigation but said it has been fully cooperating with authorities.

It has been talked about for many months, but Snapchat has officially

filed shares to investors, hoping to raise $3 billion US. According to

the company nearly 160 million people use of Snapchat to create 2.5

billion maps every day. -- snaps. It is huge with young people, so if you

are feeling old like myself are technology correspondent has this

tutorial. Here is the problem. I've been on

Snapchat for a couple of years but I've never got it. Now finally I'm

determined to understand it with a younger person, Priscilla. What do I

do? The best thing to do is take selfies. You double-tap your screen

and if you want to put a filter, you hold on to your face, you have

different filters. I've got that filter, that filter... I've got

ears. To send that to someone individually you click on that

arrow. You can share your day with the world. That's the point of

Snapchat. Let's go out and try that. I'm walking down the stairs of

Snapchat in and it is really dangerous. -- Snapchatting. It's a

spiral staircase! Priscilla, we've both got lunch. Is this? -- is this

snapable? Very. Is it about getting thousands of people to like my

snaps? No, it is about your views. You can always see who has viewed

your Snapchat on your friends list. It isn't about mass market, it is

about if you close friends? Yes. Some celebrities open up their

Snapchat to their fans. Now I am snapping with a bunch of Radio one

fans who are waiting for somebody famous. It was Camilla, either way,

and even Priscilla doesn't know who she is! I don't get how they are

making money out of this. I think out they make money out of it is

through the Discover page. You can see various publishers have put

stuff on. Do you ever do that? Hardly. Are their adverts? Yes.

Sometimes you are watching people's snaps and then an advert may pop up,

but you can always skip it. Just some of its appeal. Snapchat is a

fun thing to do. You can do it throughout the day, wherever you

are, so it is fun. In other business news, making

headlines, the boss of Uber has quit President Trump's business dealers

forum. The company has been hit by boycott campaigns all week. That's

as people perceive its participation as an endorsement of the president.

The executive order has been condemned to stop the refugee

programme, but calls for a boycott have continued. The firm is

suspending its service in Taiwan next Friday, following the

authorities' decision to raise fines against unlicensed ridesharing

services targeting Uber. Staying with that sector and Weibo's

rival in Southeast Asia wants a piece of the sector, investing more

than half a billion US dollars in India -- Indonesia. It wants

customers to use its application to pay from everything to rides, food,

shopping and beyond. Like many other countries the region, and that

majority of Indonesia's population still don't have a bank account.

There are several hundreds of millions of people in Asia, so being

able to provide a real localised solution like Grab Pay, or Grab

Rewards and many iterations of our future products for Grab Pay will

solve real problems in Southeast Asia and especially in Asia.

The collapse of South Korea's hon Jean last year meant shipping rates

dropped. I asked an industry expert if we can expect, conditions for the

industry this year. Basically it is at the bottom of the sector and

we've seen rates rise. This year looks better. Better than last year

I would say. Will it be a better year? If we look at the economy, the

US economy is feeding into the economies of Japan and Europe and

we've seen the exporter numbers turning positive. That's having a

positive effect on demand and supply has been curtailed. Overall it is

looking better than 2016. What about the fear of US trade? Is that the

biggest risk for Asian shipping in 2017? Certainly. We have the rise of

protectionism as well as the trade wars. Trade wars are a very negative

pressure. Rising protectionism creates problems for the sector.

What if the trade barriers are raised? How will this impact an

already weakened shipping sector? It will be a disaster. It will have a

significant impact on the trade flows and we will see much lower

volumes. But this is longer term. In the short term there will be a

negative, but the industry is bracing for it. Could we see a

consolidation in 2017? In the past two years we had 13 or even lower in

terms of alliances. We will see some parts of the benefit, but I'd was a

major consolidation is over. That was a shipping expert. A quick look

at the market and Asian stocks. In early trade, a tentative start.

Investors await the outcome of a key US multi- jobs report and how this

will impact the Fed's policy outlook. And of course China's

markets are back on track after a week-long break due to the lunar New

Year holidays. Sport Today is coming up.

The government has published a White Paper setting out its plans

The Brexit secretary David Davis told MPs that changes would be

phased in gradually and the UK would not find itself on the edge

The paper promises a new immigration bill