15/06/2017 Asia Business Report

fire on politicians who were practicing

A senior Republican member of the House of Representatives,

Steve Scalise, is in a critical condition.

The Prime Minister is scheduled to hold talks wit the main parties

in Northern Ireland at Downing Street.

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

She has done it - US interest rates rise to their highest levels since

the 2008 financial crisis but now what? Overall we continue to expect

that the economy will expand at a moderate pace over the next few

years. And it is crunch time in the bidding war for Toshiba's chip unit

but wary as Japan, which has traditionally stood behind its

troubled companies? Hello, welcome to Asia Business

Report. Despite lacklustre growth the American central bank has taken

steps to cool the world's largest economy, forging ahead with the

second interest-rate rise this year, signalling another is on the cards

in 2017. The Fed reserve, led by the chair, Janet Yellen, had plans to

shrink the bond holdings and massive debts which were built up during the

financial crisis. Our correspondent Michelle Fleury sent this report.

It is steady as she goes at America's central bank. Officials

here are determined to stay the course of slowly but steadily

raising interest rates. The Fed chair Janet Yellen explained that

with the world's largest economy improving, this and further rate

rises are needed to head off inflation. We continue to expect

that the ongoing strength of the economy will warrant gradual

increases in the federal funds rate to sustain healthy labour markets

and stabilise inflation around the 2% long run objective. And the head

of the International Monetary Fund, speaking in Germany, said that the

hike was positive for America, long a driver of global growth. Inflation

is getting close to where it should be and not just inflation but core

inflation as well, so those are good indicators of an economy that is

doing better - largest in the world, hopefully with good spillover

effects elsewhere in the world. But not all signs are good - retail

sales just dropped sharply. If American consumers feel upbeat it is

not shown in their spending. US investors are a different matter.

Stock markets continued to hit all-time highs. So is it full steam

ahead for further rate rises? I don't think the Fed is giving a

massive vote of confidence. They are saying they can ease off the

accommodation are bit and so really they are still looking at two

aspects of the economy - what they can and can't help. With the Trump

administration struggling to enact the economic agenda more than ever

control of the US economy lies here with the Federal Reserve. And

today's decision to raise interest rates is an example of the Fed doing

what it had carefully signalled it would do but Janet Yellen can't

control everything and come with the economic state next, future

decisions may not be as clear-cut. -- mixed. Well, some investors are

worried about the Fed's hawkish tone and that dragged down US stocks with

the Dow closing slightly higher at the NASDAQ posted its biggest slide

since December and we saw Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Facebook closing

lower, and we will look at the currencies now because Janet

Yellen's Rosy outlook helped the US dollar to bounce back after a

seven-month low and this is where it is trading against the yen and the

Australian dollar. Meanwhile, oil prices tumbled 4% to

the lowest level in seven months on Wednesday over ongoing concerns

about a global supply glut. Let's have a look at how they are going.

They are not doing too differently - they continue to slide lower in

Asian trade. It is decision day for Toshiba. The

firm will name who will buy the memory chip unit today. The sale

will cover massive losses from the nuclear business in the US and,

interestingly, not one Japanese bidder is in the running. Here is

Rupert Wingfield-Hayes with the details.

Toshiba was the company that invented the flash memory industry

back in the mid-19 80s. Since then it has become huge. Last year it was

a $17 billion US market. And to give you an idea of why, here is a trip

down memory lane. Remember this? It is an antique now but ten years ago

that was the state-of-the-art. It contained 2 gigabytes of flash

memory. A few years later it shrunk to this, 8 gigabytes of memory. And

now, this is the size of a flash memory card and it has 32 gigabytes

on it. That is enough to put your whole life on. And to lose. Let's

not forget that Toshiba is not selling its flash memory division,

not because it wants to but because of massive debts it has run up in

the North American nuclear division so, in effect, to pay off debt in

the US it is selling its most valuable asset, but who is turning

up to buy them? Well, you guessed it, the Americans, firstly from

Western Digital for $18 billion, which was soon followed by Broadcom

with $23 billion, then a bit from South Korea and the biggest from

Taiwan, $27 billion US. What is extraordinary about all of this is

that not one single one has come from a Japanese corporation. In the

old days, Japanese companies would look after each other, by each

other's shares and they'll each other out but now that has gone. And

I have it on very good authority that the Japanese ministry of trade

and industry has been frantically trying to put together a Japanese

bid and they have failed. And so they have come up with their own

government backed bid but even that is being led by an American company,

KKR, so what we can say for certain is, in the end, whoever gets control

of Toshiba's flash memory business, this is the end of the Japan Inc

that we used to know. Rupert Wingfield-Hayes in Tokyo.

In other news:, the US has raised concerns about China's access to

artificial intelligence -based technology developed in America.

According to Reuters a leaked report shows proposals from the Pentagon

that export controls should be updated to stop Chinese firms being

able to invest in some start-ups. And the rules are changing in China

for football clubs to help the local development of the sport. Clubs that

spend more than $6 million on foreign players will have to pay the

same amount into a national soccer development fund. The measure

follows a spending spree from teams backed by major private firms and

state-owned businesses. Now, the E3 gaming event in LA, that

is where the latest things are being unveiled, including the latest

company to an veiled their wares, Japanese gaming giant Nintendo,

slipping behind Sony and Microsoft recently, they are enjoying a

resurgence thanks to the newest console, the Nintendo Switch, and

here is Chris Fox reporting. Mario, whoo-hoo! I love this crowd of

people that are just super Mario fans. This game is just gonna knock

their hats right fighting. Now, Super Mario games are typically the

bestselling on Nintendo consoles. It is different than before. More of an

open world. The difference in this game is you throw your hat by

shaking your controller. Oh, I just snapped her. Sorry. Last year here

at E3 Nintendo had one game to show off. This year it has a whole raft

of titles. That includes Super Mario Odyssey - quite a turnaround.

We have a problem in explaining since the beginning. The video that

introduced Switch for the first time was about trying to make people

understand, you are gonna be able to play on TV and take it to any place.

You can play multiplayer locally anywhere. The Switch is such an

improvement on Wii. It seems to have brought back Nintendo's Mojo. It is

night and day. They have really turn things around. What do you think is

the appeal of Mario, why do people love at? It is a tribute to the

creativity and the teams that Nintendo, just the passion and the

love for videogames, it never stops and it is a joy to be a part of

that. Whoopee! That was Chris Fox with that report.

We know that owning a car can be expensive but how about this? A

parking space in Hong Kong has set another property price record,

selling for just under, wait for it, $665,000, that is according to a

newspaper. If it is correct, it is more than a valley of some Hong Kong

home is where you can pick up an apartment for $540,000. Gosh, lots

of money. Let's have a look at the markets and

you can see the Nikkei is flat, following on from Wall Street.

And that is it for