07/03/2017 Asia Business Report

manufacturer, PSA, which owns Peugeot and Citroen.

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

Threats of legal challenges and a new warning from businesses over

President Trump's revised travel ban. Activewear. The fashion

phenomenon that is grabbing Australia by the seat of its pants

and is now heading to Asia. Good morning, Asia. Hello, world. This is

Asia Business Report. I am Rico Hizon. It's a Tuesday. US President

Donald Trump has signed a new executive order, a scaled back

version of his controversial travel ban. . It bands new visas for

travellers from six mainly Muslim countries. -- bans. Unlike the

current ban, current visa holders are excluded. Some say it could hurt

the US economy. The last travel ban was met with a lot of confusion and

a lot of misunderstanding about who was actually impacted. This new

version of the travel ban certainly has a lot more detail. It is more

specific in terms of people who hold green cards, for example. That said,

businesses are still expecting that their businesses are going to be

impacted. Already we are seeing that people are coming to the US less for

tourism and travel. This is already having an impact on America's

economy. This is a country that was largely built on immigrants. Many

businesses here were built by immigrants. We can expect a lot of

anger bubbling up from America's business community. What about the

feedback from Silicon Valley? That area of California has a lot of

foreign workers. The technology sector is really dependent on a lot

of outside labour to fill in the jobs. There is such a huge demand

for these people with specific computer skills. One of the tools

people in Silicon Valley use is the H1B Visa programme. It is a lottery.

President Trump has always had his eye on that specific lottery

programme. On Friday, we heard that he has already put a stop to the

Expedia did version of it. There was a certain fee that would let

businesses expedite visa programme is. That is hurting Silicon Valley.

In addition to that, it will hurt the technology company quite badly.

Samira Hussain. Hang Jing used to be China's biggest company, and now it

has been delisted from the Hang Seng Index. It is not the only company in

the maritime sector feeling the pressure. We have the Chief

Operating Officer of a website on line. He told me what is expected.

What is hurting the market is the offshore oil and gas services. Three

companies have gone through liquidation in the last six months

and six more are in restructuring on chapter 11 and many more are

expected. What is expected to come soon is a sea drill out of Norway to

go through a restructuring of chapter 11. Why is that a major

problem, the offshore sector? It was driven by the low oil price since

2014 which has restricted exploration and production by major

oil companies and has had a knock-on effect of the rates for these

vessels and oil rigs and platforms exploring and looking for oil out in

the deep sea. Why is it really that bad? We are already seeing oil

prices recovering from lows. The oversupply of vessels and high oil

prices and exploration in 2013 and 2014. Too many vessels were being

built. It is a typical shipping problem. It is a cyclical business.

Oversupplied. There was a cancellation of a lot of projects

out there. Too many ships, low demand, low utilisation, low rates.

What is your outlook for the shipping sector and subsectors over

the next 12 months? We really like the gas sectors, energy and LPG, it

is the fuel of the future. Environment to lay friendly. A good

demand story. Dry Bulk is having the start of a recovery. We will see

what is happening with demand, especially out of China. Supply of

vessels has been decreasing. Limited orders in the last few years. What

is problematic is the offshore sector, which I talked about, and

the container sector. What about demand from the Asia-Pacific region?

Is picking up to support the injury. -- industry? We have seen a pickup

in demand, especially in the oil and dry box sectors. But we have to look

at the supply of vessels. Container and offshore will continue to affect

the rates. In other news, a big merger in the fund industry. UK fund

manager, Aberdeen money-management, is merging with Standard Life. It

will create one of the biggest fund managers overseeing assets worth 810

billion dollars US. They say it will slash costs and include job cuts.

Fears of a job cutting programme are increasing in the UK. Vauxall says

it is paying $2.3 billion to buy a General Motors' European business.

General Motors will have no more business in Europe. Shares in Snap,

the company which owns the popular messaging programme, Snapchat,

closed 12% lower overnight following the lower opening price from its

first day of trading. It is the first time it's stock has dropped

since the company listed on the New York Stock Exchange last week. --

its. It follows advice from several analysts who suggested investors

should sell amid strong competition from Facebook and Twitter. Have you

bought any activewear recently? Not me. By that, I mean this. Oh, look

at that. It looks really sassy and sexy. Yoga tights are worth 270

billion dollars. In a shredder, sales have grown to 6% in the last

five years. -- Australia. It is even the aspect of a new study, as we

report. It is the uniform of the ultra- healthy, or at least those

who would like to be. In Sydney, bright tights and tank tops appear

everywhere. It seems there is very little that cannot be done in

activewear. You can work, exercise, meet for lunch, even go to a drinks

party. Are you going to the gym? No. Activewear. Buying groceries in my

activewear. It is such a phenomenon in Australia that it spawned this

viral video. Doing literally nothing in my activewear. And academic study

looks at why the industry has grown, and where it goes from here. The

Victoria University research suggests sales in Australia will

keep growing by over 20% in the next five years, driven, it says, by the

desire to exercise any where and at any time. Consumer demand has not

been met. Sport is not just for guys. It has been driven by

companies to seek out new markets and also driven by women themselves

who are seeking better products and retail experience is. It is an

opportunity this woman has grabbed. She has set up the website

StyleRunner after being frustrated by her own shopping experience. Now

she wants to sell activewear to Asia. I was annoyed because I wanted

more fashionable activewear. I was doing yoga. When I realised no one

was doing it, I thought I had to give it a chance. So I started a

business and customers loved it from the get go. Huge success. We were

growing 30%. According to the research, the next step is for the

clothes to integrate wearable technology that can help count the

kilometres. At the moment, the activewear boom shows no sign of

slowing. BBC News, Sydney. And before we go, here is a look now at

the markets. As you can see on the market boards, currently mixed in

early Tuesday trading. As for take care's shares, opening lower by

investors being spooked by political uncertainty and cautioned by US jobs

data being released later this week. -- Tokyo's. The Hang Seng Index up

marginally by 0.4%. Just like the All Ords Index. US stocks finished

lower with banks giving back some of their recent gains. Thank you so

much for investing your time with us. I am Rico Hizon. Sport Today is

coming up next. You are watching BBC