20/07/2017 Asia Business Report

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

Talking tough. Trump officials demand fairer trade links with

China. Can be two sides struck a deal? And how some companies are

hoping to create a better workplace for mothers by providing childcare.

Welcome to Asia Business Report. Live from Singapore. Trade tensions

have emerged between the US and China during the annual bilateral

meeting. Neither side were willing to comment at the end of the talks

after the US demand fairer trade links with China. Washington wants

to reduce its massive trade deficit in goods from Beijing. That deficit

reached nearly $350 billion last year. The US also wants a better

access to China's growing consumer markets. But the Trump

administration could introduce tariffs or quotas on Chinese steel

and aluminium products. Washington has frequently accused Beijing of

flooding the market and driving prices down. Earlier I asked our

business correspondent is this tough talk is a good strategy. Donald

Trump campaigned on this promise to shrink America's trade deficit which

he says are helped diminish American manufacturing. If you look at the

trade gap in America, the widest gap it has with any country is China so

unsurprisingly it has been a focus of tough talk. The president chose a

billionaire investor to steer this meeting, and his language echoed

that of his boss. China now accounts for nearly 50% of the US goods trade

deficit. If this were just the natural product of free-market

forces, we could understand it. But it is not. And so it is time to

rebalance our trade and investment relationship in a more fair,

equitable and reciprocal manner. Donald Trump has stopped labelling

China at currency manipulator. Comments between the two sides after

an amiable meeting between President Xi and Donald Trump have suffered.

If you listen to the leader of the Chinese delegation, his comments

were restrained. TRANSLATION: China and the United States are still

having dialogue, not confrontation. Dialogue can not immediately address

all differences that confrontation will damage the interests of both.

Despite that amiable meeting between the leaders of the biggest

economies. There are still tensions. One of the key ones that has been

focused on is a fight over steel and what could happen. On the trade

deficit front, Beijing has its own reasons that it is urging Washington

to loosen outdated restrictions on the export of high-tech products. I

don't think many were expecting a concrete announcement but what is

next? Well, yeah, these two sides, nobody was expecting much to come

out of the meeting that there are a few things pointing out. There was

no joint statement following the meeting. There was a meeting with

the press that was supposed to happen but was counselled. This is a

departure from what we have seen previously. I think people interpret

it as a sign of disagreement between the two and it goes back to the

steel tariffs. That is something we could see going forward. Steelmaker

shares in America were soaring after the results of this meeting. In

other business news making headlines, there has been a twist on

one of China's biggest property deals with the group now deciding to

sell 77 hotels to a different buyer. Becomes just one week after the

property giant agreed to sell all of its hotel assets for $9.3 million.

Wall Street's top indices closed at record highs on Wednesday, boosted

by the technology sector. They hit new highs with rising oil prices and

solid corporate earnings, driving some of the days of gains.

Shareholders of British American Tobacco have approved the

acquisition of an American company. $47 billion deal is expected to be

completed next week. It will create the world's biggest tobacco company,

controlling more than 12% of the global market. Imagine if you could

do your banking using nothing more than your eyeball and your smart

phone. Biometric technology is being adopted by banks and TSB sees the

first in Europe to introduce it. As thou tech expert explains, there may

be concerns about security. From September, you rise could be

your password into your bank account. We will show you how to use

your iris. TSB customers will need an advanced Samsung phone to try out

the technology. You set it up by getting the phone 's camera to scan

your eyes. Then if you want to log to your bank account, you just need

to look at the screen. Because it is looking at 266 different

characteristics of your eye... Let's just check, can you getting? It will

not work if someone else looks. It is extremely fast. Less than a

second to access. It is extremely secure. And there is nothing more

convenient than looking at the screen of your smart phone. You

don't have to do anything special. We all know about the complexities

of getting into your online accounts, remembering passwords,

fiddling about with devices like this. Good biometrics, which depend

on something unique about you, simple answer? Facial recognition

and retina scanning are used at passport control in various

countries and fingerprint scanning on smart phones has taken off as a

mean of paying for anything for coffee from a bus ticket. But even

those promoting biometrics admit consumers have two big concerns.

Privacy and the security of the technology, whether can be spoofed.

If we got that right and put the right processes in place, I think

the convenience of the biometrics offers will create a fantastic

customer experience. German hackers claimed they fool the iris scanner

with a high-definition photo. But the phone maker and TSB insist it is

unlikely that anybody would have both the phone and the photo needed

to defeat the system. All across BBC News today we are

looking at the pressure of child care for families around the world.

Problems for working families during the holidays, and how businesses

respond. Chukker in the US is a big business, given the length of their

school holidays. -- childcare. Yellow school buses on the streets

of Manhattan in the summer, do not mean school. It means camp. Although

some bread the 45 minute bus ride, the destination is an idyllic summer

experience city children. This other day camp spends 50 acres. Campers

undertake a range of activities from zip lining to making a camp

delicacy, small was. There are hundreds of camps like these running

in New York state all summer. But they are not cheap. Camps can be

anywhere from $500 a week to $1000 a week. There is a range for

everybody. A private day camp with bus and lunch is 750 to 1000, but

there are local cancer can be left. Camps like these offer children,

especially those who live in the city, a unique experience. They can

also be prohibitively expensive for parents. These campers are filing

into the classroom to make beads, necklaces. It is just one of the

many activities offered by the Brooklyn children's museum day camp

programme. It comes at no cost to parents. As a result, the wait list

is double that of the number of campers they can accommodate. Some

parents have the means to afford to expose their child to certain

experiences. Others do not. Some parents rely on this programme to

help them make ends meet. Some parents did not have the resources

to pay thousands of dollars for a summer programme. As many parents

know, children are pricey proposition all year round. When it

comes to child care over the summer, there options are defined by your

means. A reminder, we will be looking at the cost of childcare

across the BBC today online and via social media. Follow the

conversation online. Let's have a look at the markets before we go.

Asian markets take their cue from Wall Street after the record close

that I mentioned earlier. The Japanese market and the Australian

market are both higher. Bad is it for this edition. Sports today is

coming up next. -- that it for this