10/03/2017 Asia Business Report

for millions of self-employed people is fair.

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

Decision day for South Korea's President Park Geun-hye. We will

assess the impact on the court's decision on whether or not to remove

her from office. And two minutes with the boss. A Chief Executive

tells us what makes his firm tick. Hello, and welcome to Asia Business

Report. This morning, in fact very shortly, we will be hearing about

South Korea's residents Park Geun-hye. She will be finding out

whether she will be removed from office permanently over a corruption

scandal. If beef court formally on seats are she will be the first

president in South Korea to lose office from parliamentary

impeachment. A presidential election will have to be held within 60 days.

I asked the director of the Corporate Network for North Asia

whether he thinks she will be impeached. I think it is very likely

that the Constitutional court is going to support the decision on the

impeachment. I think it is very hard for the justices to ignore the

sentiment of the country right now. More than three quarters of the

population are in favour of the impeachment. However, there is a

chance the justices will rule otherwise. We have had an

impeachment case in the past were sentiments were quite different, but

this time it is likely it will happen. We know the scandal is

already threatening the head of the country's largest company, Samsung.

But what kind of impact has this had on the economy, on business

sentiment? I think the impact first and foremost is its negative impact,

or the damage on the reputation on the image of South Korea, which of

course also has implications on the economy, the business sector in

general. However, the economy has proven fairly resilient. Despite a

slight downturn in GDP growth and consumption in the second half of

2016, we have seen a little bit of an uptick earlier this year so far.

So the overall economic repercussions do not seem to be as

negatively pronounced as we would have expect it initially. Now, in a

crucial test of support for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India has

been holding five state elections. The most important one is in the

northern battleground state of Uttar Pradesh, with its population of 220

million, the biggest democratic election anywhere in the world this

year. Small stalls like this one on the

roadside selling tea, sandwiches and a host of other goods can be found

across Mumbai. Most of these hawkers come from Uttar Pradesh, which is

India's largest state, with a population of over 200 million. On

Saturday, results for the recently held local elections in Uttar

Pradesh and four other states will be announced. These results are

crucial for prime Mr Narendra Modi and his party. It is the first major

local election after the Indian government withdrew 86% of the

currency in circulation, disrupting the lives of millions across the

country. That is why many have turned these elections on a

referendum about that decision. The other crucial aspect is that despite

having a majority in the low house of Parliament, Narendra Modi's party

is still in a minority in the upper house, when members are elected by

the various state councils. This often acts as a roadblock when it

comes to passing legislation. A victory in Uttar Pradesh will help

increase his party's legislative strength in the upper house, which

will give him political muscle to push through economic reforms like

the implementation of the goods and services tax, cut red tape, and

introduce more laws to tackle corruption. But if he loses many

analysts worry he might shift his focus to populist policies to

attract voters ahead of the Indian election in 2019. Over the last few

weeks, Indian stock markets have been performing well, expecting

Narendra Modi's party to win this election. But if that doesn't

happen, the markets could turn red when they open on Monday morning.

In other business news, Germany's Volkswagen and India's Tartar motors

are expected to sign a deal later today on two operating together in

the Indian market. Pitcher carmakers reportedly hope to share technology,

components and manufacturing components. VW is already the

world's used car maker. It is looking for new markets as it tries

to recover from a global diesel emissions scandal. Investors have

poured $1 billion into Airbnb in its latest bid to raise money. This

means the home rental company is now valued at $31 billion, making it the

second most valuable start-up company in the US, after Uber. No

word on how it would use the money, but Airbnb has plans to expand its

operations globally. This week US President Donald Trump

has signed a new executive order which puts a temperate ban on people

from six mainly Muslim countries from entering America. --

temporarily. The previous order was blocked by a federal court and

sparked confusion at airports and mass protests. Rico Hizon asked

Andrew Herdman from the Association of Asia Pacific airlines about what

kind of contingencies the carriers have put in place to avoid that once

again, the confusion and chaos that we saw, when the band kicks in next

week. Well, it is awareness. Telling the frontline staff, being clear

about what the rules are, how they are interpreted, cases of dual

passports, cases where people already have green cards and so on

and so forth. These are compensated issues and just knowing what the

rules are, how to apply them, explaining that to passengers, and

passages themselves of course have questions even before they go to the

airport. -- cobbler catered issues. But overall, we are concerned about

the fewer restrictions the better for people moving across borders. We

are concerned about the signal that this sense, that borders are closing

in certain carriers and passengers are not welcome. Is this having an

impact in terms of the large Muslim population is here in Asia, which

includes the likes of Indonesia and Malaysia? They are not on the banned

list, but do you think that less Muslims from Asia will now travel to

the US? Certainly citizens from those countries would have taken a

close interest in the executive order and whether the President was

targeting Muslims, despite denials to the contrary, they will be

thinking, is this going to affect my ability to get a Visa and get access

to the United States? Again, people there in mind, how much hassle as

they going to be in getting a Visa and getting into the country. That

might cause them to choose to girls were on holiday. -- ago elsewhere on

holiday. More people are watching videos on their mobile devices than

ever before and there is big money in it. We are kicking off a new

series called Two Minutes With, and this time it is with a creative

agency which has won many awards for its commercials and films. Most

grisly, they worked on Beyonce's app lemonade album. -- Beyonce's

Lemonade. What makes a good video is an extremely broad question, but if

we talk about digital content, commercial contents, and he wants to

engage the audience and make declines, the future clients work

with you, you need to think about what their story is. Not just your

product, what you want to tell about your product, but how will you be

perceived by somebody on the other side of the screen? I tried to

change... The first five seconds are so important. We have done projects

where we have produced the same film but cut it differently. So we put

the end in the beginning and it has an impact that is 3-5 times more

remarkable than the traditional type of story. When working on Lemonade,

we were very involved in creating the concept by working together with

the director and with the artist. You know, suggesting innovative ways

of making something visually conceptually different, that will

rake through the clutter of other information and content out there.

-- will break through. When we worked with Netflix, we

often work with an agency partner, and our work is very much about

making them realise the idea they need to have to engage the audience.

When they have their formats, there are so many formats coming from so

many different players today. HBO, Amazon, conditional TV channels.

Netflix has to cut through that and show that their content is more

exciting, more entertaining than the other competitors.

Michelle Coleman ski explaining everything in two minutes flat. I

have about 30 seconds to its planned markets right now, because the

Nikkei is gaining a bit, up over 1%. -- explain the markets. This is due

to the weaker yen. We have some prospects of a rate hike in the US

when the Federal Reserve meets next week, which has been pushing the US

dollar higher. We still have crucial US payroll data coming out, and

expectations are that will be very strong, supporting that push for a

rate rise. Looking elsewhere, marginal gains in the other markets.

That is all for this addition of Asia Business Report. Thank you for

watching. A national monument paying tribute

to members of the military