08/12/2017 Asia Business Report

the deadlock over the Irish border

in Brexit negotiations.

Now on BBC News, all the latest

business news live from Singapore.

Find out how Japan is considering

rewarding businesses with a tax cut.

And China releases trade data for

the month of November. We find out

what we can expect.

Hello and welcome to this Friday

edition of Asia Business Report, I'm

Sharanjit Leyl.

We've been talking a lot lately

about Donald Trump's tax bill but

the Japanese government is also

considering some new rules to boost

the economy. The package will go to

prime ministers Shinzo Abe's Cabinet

today, where it is expected to be

approved. The package rewards

businesses that increase wages and

investing productivity growth by

offering tax cuts. For more we are

joined by our business report of

Carrico I. -- reporter Mariko Oi.

The tax rate in the pan has been

coming down significantly under the

current Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe

-- in Japan. When he came to power

in 2012 the tax rate was almost as

high as the US, at 38%. But for the

upcoming fiscal year, starting in

April, it is expected to go below

30%. And if this new package gets

the green light it could go down as

low as 20%, but there's a catch. It

only applies to companies which

reward their employees with a pay

rise of at least 3% and invest in

productivity. Basically it's a

measure to stop companies hoarding

higher profits.

Do we now how Japan

compares to the rest of the world,

especially countries in this region

that do we know.

If it goes down to

20% that's fairly low, even lower

than the Asian average, just over

21% -- do we know. It isn't low as

Hong Kong, for example, which is at

16.5%, the lowest among developed

economies, or Singapore at 17%. But

it becomes on a par with China at

20%. Of course, Japan isn't the only

country considering cutting the

corporate tax rate. The United

States, as we've been talking about,

the corporate tax rate combining the

national and state taxes roughly

about 40%, but Donald Trump is

really trying to push through his

tax reform bill to cut that rate

down significantly. The Japanese

package is expected to get approved

by the Cabinet today and it will go

to Parliament.

We will be watching

that very closely.

Thanks for that.

Staying with Japan, the country's

economy expanded at an annualised

rate of 2.5% between July and

December according to the latest

government data, revised up from a

preliminary estimate of 1.4%. The

revised figure came in well ahead of

analyst expectations.

The US government has averted a

possible shutdown but only

temporarily. The house and the

Senate have now passed a stopgap

measure to avert the shutdown,

leaving fights over budget

priorities and a range of other

controversial issues for the coming

weeks.

And another day, another record.

Bitcoin has rocketed to a lifetime

high of just shy of $16,000, that's

a 60% gain for the week. It's

intensified the debate about whether

the crypto currency is in a bubble

that is about to burst. The JP

Morgan Chase it the called Bitcoin a

fraud in September. China is due to

release new trade data for the month

of November in the next few hours.

In recent years the government has

intensified its crackdown on

polluting industries and financial

risk but economists believe those

measures have put pressure on

China's economic growth. Earlier I

spoke to a senior China our nest at

a frontier strategy group and I

asked how the economy would handle

the government's new direction --

analyst.

China are walking a fine

line with trying to initiate another

slow down to the risk the financial

system but on the other hand not

doing too much to cause a domino

slowdown effect that could hurt

China -- de-risk.

To some extent we

have seen the economy do well in

other parts, retail sales, you had

the big Bonanza Singles Day then, to

what extent are those bits of the

economy of setting the elements that

are slowing down?

Unfortunately

consumption is still such a part of

the economy -- offsetting. I think

the slowdown will continue

regardless even if consumption is a

relatively positive story.

We know

the Chinese relationship with its

trade partners hasn't always been

good, they've always had a massive

surplus, particularly with the US,

but we've seen Donald Trump's trip

to China where they came away with

$250 billion of trade deals. The

trade surplus actually narrowed

somewhat recently as well, so our we

seeing China's trade relationship

with its major partners going

forward?

Look at the US, we will see

trade tensions picking up against.

The US is relying on China with

North Korea and the expectation is

they won't be able to. We have seen

rhetoric heating up again. You have

the trade representative

investigating China's intellectual

property practices and rules on

enforced technology transfer and an

undersecretary at the Treasury who

said comprehensive economic dialogue

has been stalled because China isn't

doing enough to address the

imbalance or to liberalise its

economy, and the US is trying to

block China from accessing market

economy status at the WTO, saying

it's just not a market economy.

How

can China get the right balance,

scale back on the financial risks

and polluting industries and keep

investment and business appetite

buoyant?

That will be very

difficult. They will try to present

themselves as being a global leader

and open for business,

globalisation, but the reality is

often different with foreign

companies complaining about being

discriminated against.

Now, when it comes to technology and

innovation, disrupters are very much

in vogue and one of the most famous

is will.i.am. He's the seven time

Grammy Award winning musician and

front man for the Black Eyed Peas.

His company is blending fashion,

lifestyle and culture with advanced

technology in a way that really

shakes up the status quo. He spoke

with the BBC's reporter.

I still

make music.

I don't want to do music for a

business. That's not the smartest

thing to do right now for me. For

other folks, that's great, but for

me I don't how we compete with

ourselves. I don't see myself on

stage at 60 years old as a business.

The fact remains that many young

people are still drawn to the

glamour of the hip-hop music world,

the entertainment industry, they

still want to see their names in

bright lights, what is your message

to those young people who, although

they may have to do music

differently, but still want to do

it?

To all the musicians out there with

big dreams, go out there and pursue

those dreams. Like, don't let

anything stand in your way. But for

all the folks on the fence who want

to do something bigger, errm,

there's nothing bigger than Bill

Gates, there's nothing bigger than

Steve Jobs, but you too have the

opportunity to, you know, try to be

that big and if you try to be as big

as Bill Gates and don't succeed, you

will be bigger than Michael Jackson,

I guarantee you that. Now that I'm

40, I want to aim to be like, you

know, the other Mike, Michael Dell.

I want to be like the other Steve

Ede, not Stevie Wonder, Steve Jobs.

I want to change will.i.am to macro

free, Bill Gates. Why not shoot and

aim that way? There's nothing wrong

with making sure your dreams have a

great execution squad. I want to

surround myself with votes that

reflect my new dream. If I can do

it, coming from the ghetto, you can

do it too, you just have to surround

yourself with engineers and

discipline future thinkers --

disciplined. If you could live in

the conditions you're living in an

dream this way, should be a

cakewalk.

The multi- award musician will.i.am

speaking there.

Let's look at the

markets now before we go. A lot of

gains in Asia, the markets that have

opened, including the Hang Seng and

the All Ordinaries in Australia have

been rising most of the morning and

doing well because we saw Wall

Street doing well, those stocks

rising with the technology stocks

like Facebook and Google parent

Alphabet doing well. We've been

reporting about the stopgap measures

as well finally being passed through

in the US am so that's also going to

reassure a lot of investors. Looking

at Australia still, looking at the

energy stocks rising in tandem with

oil prices. Woodside petroleum doing

well and origin energy gaining 4%

and at one point hitting its highest

in two years. That's it for this

edition of