13/02/2017 Asia Business Report

Now on BBC News all the latest business news live with

The best of friends. US President Trump eat and Japanese Prime

Minister Shinzo Abe meet. We find out what it will mean for the

markets and the economy. And what do you want to be when you grow up? We

find out why themepark that let's kids try out different jobs is

gaining ground here in Asia. Hello and welcome to Asia Business

Report, I'm Sharanjit Leyl. Japan's latest GDP figures are in showing

the country's economy grew at an annualised rate of just 1% in the

last quarter of 2016. The latest figures follow a weekend of meetings

between these two men, this is Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe

as well as the US President Trump eat in the US, and the two leaders

agreed to a new economic dialogue that will focus on monetary policy,

corporate projects and trade. So what will it mean for markets and

the broader economy? Earlier I spoke with Martin Schultz from the Fujitsu

Research Institute. Two objectives, one, showing that the US government

needs a strong friend in Asia, that point was well taken it looks. The

second is getting into a dialogue, that seems to be working now, there

will be a continuous dialogue and this is very important to show the

different positions and how they can be developed. You talk about this

dialogue but we know that with Trump it was pretty much the end of the

Trans-Pacific Partnership, so the idea is how they can move ahead with

this dialogue. Some talk about bilateral trade relationships, but

how difficult is that politically to achieve when you take into account

that Japan logged the second-largest trade surplus with the US last year?

That is really the tricky point here. It's not just trade, it's also

the currency. Japan is a fast ageing economy with a slow economy at home,

it needs exports. It also need a currency that makes it possible for

governments to invest. The main point in Japan is actually there is

so much capital in Japan, there's easy monetary policy so it also

needs to invest. That's where the two countries can meet and this is

where the focus has been, investment from the Japanese side in the US

will help a lot. The US and Japan on the other hand need to remain calm

in terms of developing the trade talks. Unfortunately TPP isn't

around so there needs to be a new framework. Martin Schultz. South

Korean prosecutors will for a second time question Samsung J Wiley in

part of a probe into a grass scandal around the country's President.

Prosecutors will question to other Samsung officials and their expected

to decide this week if they will seek an arrest warrant for Mr Li.

Earlier I asked our reporter why there is renewed interest in

Samsung. If the head of Samsung, Mr Li, thought he was off the hook when

a court in Seoul decided to reject his arrest warrant last month, he

may not have expected today's summit to appear back at the prosecutor's

office. During the past three weeks, investigators really reviewed the

case and decided there were new aspects to the investigation that

required further questioning. The allegation is that Samsung gave

millions of dollars in return for the votes of the national pension

fund in a big and contested restructuring of the company. This

time senior executives of Samsung may also be questioned alongside

with Mr Lee and the investigators feel they have collected enough

evidence that may merit his detention. The prosecution team

could file another arrest warrant and the court would then have to

review the case again, so another anxious legal process may be heading

towards Samsung's boss. Kevin Kim in Seoul. Block chain is the security

protocol that helps to underpin the digital currency Bitcoins but

recently mainstream financial institutions have also begun to take

note. In fact, many have worked to adopt block chain technologies. So

what are the advantages and how does it work with the charisma of the

Tshwane Open has more. Imagine this. -- Karishma Vaswani has more.

We are part of a joint account and each block is a transaction.

Everytime one of us makes a transaction it gets added to the

entire system and it's all linked together, one block on top of the

other. At any point in time each of us can make a transaction, we can

put money in and take money out and the entire system knows about it, it

gets validated by all of us. But if one of us wants to do something

dodgy without any of the others finding out, like for example change

one of the transactions in the account, or remove something from

it, well, the entire system would be lost. All of us would find out and

the transaction wouldn't be able to go through. It would be invalidated.

What does this do? It cuts out the middleman, the people who usually

verify these sorts of transactions. So that means no more credit cards,

no more banks. That's why so many banks are trying to jump onto the

block chain bandwagon but before you run out and try to invest in block

chain, let me give you a little note of caution. Some people who have

used this technology have said that it's not that easy to you is and

it's not always so secure. Of course, all of these block chains

depend on the quality of the code written into them and as we all know

these days sometimes codes can be cracked. And if that happens,

well... The entire blockchain could come crashing down.

Why our so excited about what chain? -- why our businesses. We were

joined earlier by the director of Asia businesses for cult. -- why are

the businesses. Up until now since blockchain

technology was introduced we seen an uptake in the retail market, mainly

in the form of digital currency and crypto currency. However we release

out to see an uptake in the corporate enterprise market, mainly

in the financials that we've recently seen. Mainly in the form of

money transfers and money movement -- we've recently seen. Howard

widespread is it, we've seen banks coming on board, -- why how

widespread. Most of the financial industry today, you're still under

proof of concept in a lot of different places, a lot of the

market operators and market makers have publicly announced their

interesting into the technology and looking into the technology. --

they're investing into. If can go beyond that in terms of regulatory

and compliance audit trails, all things can be used by block

blockchain technology. Could it potentially cut out the middleman

and they could be out of business? Definitely, there's a concern about

that. The technology is still new and with any new technology there

are concerns and hesitation of the uptake.

Deciding what you want to be when you grow up can be one of the

toughest questions a child will ever face. Our business catering to their

curious mind is kids a near. -- a business. The global educational

theme park is fast expanding across Asia but is it exposing children to

too many big brands along the way? We look at the theme park as part of

our business of kids series. I want to be a policeman. I want to

be a doctor. I want to be a pilot. I want to be an air hostess.

Thank you. In this imaginary city, kids come here to have fun and to

learn about grown-up jobs. They also own pretend money. There are nearly

40 companies vying for the children's the tension but some ask

if it's appropriate for children to be exposed to so many brands in such

an immersive way -- children's attention.

Branding experts warn parents should be careful. Kids are constantly

exposed to big brands, they're bombarded by thousands of brand

messages every day but that's different to being dropped into a

branded environment where he is no escape and no ability for them to

censor themselves or the parents to edit it for them. Kidzania doesn't

see a problem. We're surrounded by brands everyday and kids will grow

up with that, whether macro three all elsewhere in the world. The

ultimate goal is to provide realism for the kids' role-play -- whether

Kidzania or elsewhere in the world. But it is expensive. What is

interesting is to picture how to earn the money and then spend

wisely. I think when they come here they can learn to be independent and

also learn more problem-solving skills. For an average day's work,

children can earn around 40 to 60 Islamic kidsos, the local currency.

But this is more than childsplay, 50 million people visited Kidzania

globally last year and half of them came from Asia. While parents can

strive to give them every opportunity to get ahead in life,

it's up to their children to take control. Ashley Ellerin, BBC News,

Singapore. Looking at the markets, they are all

higher, as you can see in Asia, taking their cues from Wall Street

gains on Friday. That's it for this edition of Asia report. Thanks for

watching. -- Asia Business Report. The United States, Japan

and South Korea have requested an urgent meeting of the UN

Security Council following North Korea's launch

of a ballistic missile on Sunday