08/11/2017 Asia Business Report

figures, which weren't attended

by UK Government officials,

on her trip to the country.

Now on BBC News all the latest

business news live from Singapore.

Leaders of the world's two leading

economic powers are set to meet as

President Trump stops off in China.

And one year after India's shock de

monetisation, we look at how will

rural villages are coping with going

cashless.

Welcome to Asia Business Report.

When US President Donald Trump

arrives in China today he will be

joined by the bosses of more than

200 American businesses. During

their visit they will look to strike

billions of dollars worth of deals,

but there are many sticking points,

including America's huge trade

deficit with China, which dealt with

over 300 billion dollars worth of

goods last year. Earlier I spoke to

the chief investment officer for the

Asia-Pacific At Credits. I asked if

Mr Trump was likely to make much

headway.

Certainly there will be a

number of large multibillion dollar

deals announced, but whether or not

simple trade can actually be

meaningfully influence market access

and mutual confidence, I don't think

it will.

We know Mr Trump has a

number of chief executives in some

of the large firms, including

Goldman Sachs. We are expecting

these deals to be announced and

further market access for these

companies. Are you suggesting these

are -- this is surface gloss?

Trade

is one of those intractable problem

is that the US had many difficulties

with in the 80s and 90s with Japan.

It's not going to go away. Where

there is real concern is whether

there is access, which clearly there

is not.

Does the blame lies with

China?

I think China's willingness

and ability to open up its market in

the same way for example that the US

does is not really there. I don't

think anyone would suggest

otherwise. From an economic

perspective, clearly there is a

homebuyers in China which is likely

to remain for some time. -- home

buyers. This does lead ultimately to

the large instances of trade

imbalances. At what we found with

Japan, and I think it's a reasonable

blueprint for China, is that it

takes a long time for this

imbalances to diminish.

Do you think

this imbalances to some extent, the

market access China could provide

the US financial providers, the

argument is that it could help China

gain financial maturity in its own

markets. Are there plus side is for

China?

That's a good point, but it

does, the cost of a local financial

institutions and I don't think

there's yet the political

willingness or ability to

countenance that hit.

Shares in the parent company of

Snapchat took a tumble after it

reported worse than expected

earnings. That's a third straight

earnings miss. Stocks plummeted by

as much as 20% and earlier I spoke

to our North American technology

correspondent and asked why

investors are abandoning the

company.

Several missed the target is forced

Snapchat in this round of earnings.

They only added 4.5 million users.

Investors had hoped for a 8 million.

They also announced that their

advertising rates, the amounts

companies pay to advertise, has gone

down by 60%, as they tried to change

to a new system for selling out.

That didn't work as they would have

liked. And one of the most

embarrassing things for the company,

this time last year they released a

product, the sunglasses that have a

camera built in so you can film

short clips of UN to friends. They

were the talk of the town when they

first came out. They are not selling

and the company has had to do a

right down of $40 million. So

there's a lot wrong there because

snap that just isn't doing as well

as people predicted at investors, as

you are mentioning, have voted by

selling their shares. 20% down.

Not a good day for the company.

Paramount pictures has ended a

financial agreement for $1 billion

with China's media company, due to

recent changes in China's foreign

investment policies. I'm joined by

our business reporter. It doesn't

help that it is today Donald Trump

is about to visit China.

The

entertainment media is buoyed by the

US. This is a big entertainment

studio. Over the summer, it did

announce it would announced --

invest $1 billion in China. That

would go towards 25% of film making

for the studio, which would last for

about three years. Now they've

agreed to call the deal off and this

is because the Chinese are now

cracking down on foreign investment.

What Paramount has done is it has a

couple of independent deals with

other companies, but there were some

rumblings over the summer that this

wasn't going well. The head of the

studio said that Huahua had not

given payment as of June and Huahua

was concerned about some of the

earnings at the box office. They

were expected to be big hits, like

Transformers. So now it looks like

Hollywood is having to pull back

from their ambitions to invest in

Hollywood.

Thanks so much. We will

be watching that story closely. We

will also be watching shares of

Toyota today, after they reported

better than expected results. The

Japanese car giant raised their

profit forecast by 8.1% to $17.5

billion, essentially due to the

weakening Japanese yen. More from

Tokyo.

We are getting the latest results

from two of Japan's car giants on

Tuesday. Toyota had good news for

investors, announcing it is buying

back some of its own shares and has

also revised its profit outlook for

this year, joining Honda in doing

so, partly thanks to the weaker yen.

But if you are not an investor or

trader your bigger concern might be

about the safety of its products,

because of the scandal surrounding

the steel Co and Toyota said after

reviewing its products it can assure

consumers that its cars are safe. We

will be hearing from Nissan on

Wednesday, but the story there might

be different because it had its own

inspection scandal.

Those shares are trading up at the

moment. It was a shock announcement

one year ago. India's government

said it was withdrawing nearly 90%

of banknotes in such elation. The

surprise announcement was aimed at

cracking down on unaccounted wealth.

And encouraging Indians to go

digital. But the move was

disruptive, especially in rural

areas. One year on, hasn't a

success? We visited one village in

India that tried to go cashless.

At an event in December last year,

the government announced that this

village, about 100 kilometres from

Mumbai, was going cashless. For the

first time ever, people were shown

how to use a card machine and dozens

were distributed to traders in the

area. One year on, cash is king

again. Even though the poster

outside this shop loudly says that

digital payments are the future,

most of his customers use cash.

TRANSLATION: The main problem is

that the network is often down. Then

there are power cuts. So there are

many times we can't use the card

machine. Only about 50% of all

transactions are conducted using it.

People from this village buy goods

from big cities like Mumbai and then

sell them to smaller villages in the

area. After the cash ban last year

businesses were hit hard. They found

making this village cashless

controlled the chaos. This is the

only bank in the area and people in

this village, and 70 others, have

their accounts on this one branch.

When the government withdrew major

currency notes last year, the queue

of people waiting to withdraw money

extended all the way down the street

right to the very end. The

government said its objective was to

crack down on illegal cash. But what

is moved it was to expose just how

many people in India are cut off

from financial networks. And things

haven't changed much in small tribal

villages like this one. Many people

here are an educated, they are not

given debit or credit card. There

have been given bank accounts, at

the branch is far away and every

trip that costs money. The social

activist who works in these areas

said there is a potential solution.

Most villages already have smart

phones and the government has

launched an easy-to-use payment at

-- app.

Why are we spending so much

money on other infrastructure? They

should spend more on creating

village Wi-Fi.

In a country like

India where two thirds of the

population still live in villages,

progress is slow. Getting people

into the banking system is one

mighty task. Getting them to use it

is Another altogether.

A quick look at the markets. We are

seeing them dipping. There's been a

lot of profit-taking going on,

because Asian shares have been

rising. We saw the All Ords lurking

near 10-year highs. The Nikkei as

well has opened lower after that big

high it hit