03/05/2017 Asia Business Report

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

Apple shares have lowered after the company posted a disappointing

iPhone sales. And training for the jobs of the future. How Singapore

hopes to give its students an edge in the age of globalisation.

Good morning Asia and hello world. Thank you for joining us for this

edition of Asia Business Report. We begin with Apple and its share price

falling overnight about 2% after the world's most valuable company

reported a fall when I fall in sales. They sold 50.8 million units

in its second quarter, that is down 1% compared to the same quarter last

year. It still posted revenues of around 53 million dollars US during

the January to March period. I spoke to our correspondent earlier and

asked if customers were waiting for the next iPhone model to be

released. Potentially. The new model coming up later this year or,

perhaps it could be delayed which would be troubling for some users.

The iPhone sales so far this year may have been down of physical

numbers, the South have been down but the revenue has gone up, because

more people are purchasing the iPhone 7 plus, a bigger and more

expensive version. Sales are robust is the phrase that the CEO used that

any wavering on the success of the iPhone does drag the stock price

down so it is down around 2% at the moment. What this does is pylon

pressure for apple for later in the year. It is the 10th anniversary

iPhone coming up and people expect big changes. There could be a delay

because of those changes, if there is a drastic new direction for the

phone but unless apple delivers strongly on what people have, on

their high hopes, it could be troubling so that is why investors

have been worried. Despite sales being down to the iPhone or all

there is still rather cash rich. Yes, very cash rich. We found out

today that they have $250 billion in cash held overseas. That is a huge

amount and the company is spending some of that cash in rewarding

shareholders but they are also under pressure to repatriate that cash

into the US to make acquisitions. If they do that, they will need a tax

cut in the US because right now the cost of bringing that money back

into the country is high. They hope, along with several other technology

companies, the Donald Trump make give them a tax holidays that money

can come back into the country. They have a good growth across the world

with the exception of one place, China. They had a drop of 14% on

sales year on year which is quite troubling because it was not so long

ago when we were talking about China being the major source of growth for

apple and the fact that it has panned out quite a way that any of

us expected will be travelling for Apple despite the world, the world

in the region experiencing a revenue growth. -- will be troubling for

apple. 10,000 workers will be hired in North America over the next nine

years. Many Indian firms faced criticism in the US for flying in

law paid workers onto every visas. Many rely heavily on a visa that

Donald Trump has asked to be reviewed. Liberty Castle at 300 UK

jobs this year. The steel sector is emerging from a crisis that saw

around 5000 jobs axed over the last few years. Liberty house's

speciality steel unit is one of the biggest suppliers to the Aerospace

or industry which with customers like Boeing and Rolls-Royce. US

airlines have been threatened with legislation to improve customer

service after a passenger was pulled down the aisle of a flight last

month. United airlines has reached a settlement with the paddle, a

passenger. At a congressional hearing, the chief executive officer

apologised to the incident. Here is what he had to say. The safety or

security as an issue we will never again ask a customer to give up

their seat once they are on board. Simple common sense. The biggest

lender in Singapore reports a 1% increase in profits which may

reflect a slightly cooler economic growth in the citystate. So how are

they doing? As part of our two minutes with serious, we asked the

bank's chief executive about the prospects and challenges in the

coming year. Southeast Asia's largest bank has reported a 1% rise

in net profit from last year. I'm joined now by the chief executive. I

have two minutes with you starting now. A 1% rise in profit? That is

flat. We got that 1% despite net interest margin being almost ten

business points lower. Despite having a particularly weak trading

quarter. We are quite pleased, actually, with a performance. You

said, however, there are headwinds in the oil and gas sector. Will they

continue? It will be challenged as long as oil prices remain between 50

and 60 I do not see a lot of new investment going in. There is likely

to be consolidation. The good news is we took most of our pain last

year and therefore we expect the new non-performing loans to be much

smaller this year than last year. And like we, we will see some much

less than we did last year. The bread-and-butter of most banks is

loans. Loan growth looks challenging in this region. How do you expect

that to build? We should be a baguette mid singledigit loan

growth. Trade has been in the first quarter. Asian exports have been up

16%. Many of our clients, including the Chinese ones are expanding

internationally and that gives us a good opportunity to finance them as

well. In terms of executive pay, last year, as you said was a tough

year. You cut executive pay by around 13%. When will that be

reinstated? We value performance at the end of the year so the answer is

to that will come in December. A rise in protectionism globally and

concerns about growth. How are you predicting the next year 's

management has been great and it will be an engine for growth. So

will cash management. Diversifying into Indonesia and South East Asia

is all looking up. Thank you so much for joining us. Millions of workers

around the world are at risk of losing their jobs to robots. A

recent report by the World Economic Forum predicted that over 5 million

jobs across 15 developed countries will be lost by the year 2020.

Another estimate says there will be a 7% net loss of jobs in the United

States by 2025. And office and administrative support staff will be

the hardest hit. Here in Singapore the government has a plan to prepare

children for an automated future. The BBC caught up with the

director-general of education. Many of the jobs that we do me

disappeared totally and many jobs that we know today will change in

shape and form tomorrow. So our job is to help our students with strong

fundamentals. If we give them the skills to apply these fundamentals

in whatever new situation, whatever new contest, whatever new jobs that

may appear for them, we believe that they should be able to deliver a

future. We have tried to pinpoint some of

the important thing such as critical and inventive thinking. We

established that our students need stronger communication and

collaborative skills. They are looking at the future in terms of

multicultural literacies. Singapore has no natural resources. The only

resource we have are our people. We therefore believe in investing in

people. There is competition globally and how will we fare will

depend on how they respond to those challenges. That was the

director-general for education in Singapore. Before we go, we have

about 30 seconds to tell you about the markets. Overall lacklustre

because US equities closed flat overnight and not a whole lot of

liquidity today as financial markets in Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea

closed for the public holiday. So on Wall Street automaker shares slumped

by airline stocks gained after the congressional hearing. Thank you so

much for investing your time with us.

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