12/12/2017 Asia Business Report

This is BBC News.

Our top story: New York's mayor says

a bomb explosion next to the city's

main bus station was

an attempted, terrorist attack.

The suspected attacker is currently

in police custody and has been named

as 27-year-old Akayed Ullah

who moved to the US from Bangladesh.

He suffered burns from the crude

pipe-bomb strapped to his body.

Three women who accused

President Trump of sexual

misconduct, alleging he groped,

kissed, and harassed them,

have demanded

a congressional inquiry.

The White House says

their claims are false.

And this video is

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The fairytale romance,

The Shape of Water, leads

nominations for the 2018

Golden Globe awards.

It's picked up seven nominations.

It could set the stage for the

winners at the Oscars in March. More

to come on BBC News.

And the top story here in the UK:

Detectives are questioning five

people in connection

with the suspected murder of three

children in a fire at a house

in Greater Manchester.

More to come. First we catch up with

the business news.

The US central bank starts its last

meeting for the year with economists

widely expecting a rate rise. And

what has gone wrong. We find out why

are the wheels have come off like

sharing services in Australia. Good

morning, eight, hello, world. It is

a Tuesday. Glad you could join us

for Asia Business Report. I am Rico

Hizon. We start with US central bank

and the Federal reserve starts its

first policy -- last policy meeting

for year. Economists have been

anticipating a rate hike for months

now. Let us put this into context.

Nine years ago, 2008, the cost of

borrowing was cut to effectively

zero in response to the global

financial turmoil. It remained there

for seven years until two years ago

when it was raised by a quarter of a

point. Since then we have seen three

rate rises as the US economy has

recovered. Earlier I spoke to the

age and chief economist, and asked

if a rate hike is a done deal.

I

think it is almost a done deal that

they will hike tomorrow. It is all

is completely priced into the

market. It will be a big surprise if

they did not hike.

What if they hold

that, what would be the reason?

It

is hard to think of one. Their

guidance has been so strong to

suggest that they will hike in

December. The data has been strong.

It is hard to really think, at this

point, why they would want to delay

it a month. The reason to do it in

this month is, in December, compared

to January, December they have a new

economic forecasts and Jenny Hill

will have -- Yellen will have a

statement.

What will this have, in

fact -- impact wise?

So far Asia has

largely been decoupling from this

thread hiking cycle.

Will this put

pressure on Asia central banks?

I

think it is starting to put more

pressure. We feel that as we get

into next year we will see more

central banks hiking. The next one

we think to hike will be Malaysia's

Central Bank, hiking in January.

Much more important than this Fed

rate hike will be the FOMC dots. At

the moment they are forecasting

three hikes. If they provides update

dots, it might mean that FOMC will

forecast four rate hikes. The market

expects only two.

If they are

looking at three or four rate hikes

in 2018, what impact could it have

on the US economy and on Asia?

The

US economy is very strong. Now we

get the fiscal expansion. This is

really needed to stop the US economy

overheating. It is good for the US

economy to avoid too much froth and

access. For Asia, I think this

tightening of US monetary policy

could put some pressure on Asian

chorus -- currencies to weaken over

time. Over the course of next you,

it will put pressure on Asian

central banks to start following the

Fed.

This year has seen many

prominent cyber-attacks, everything

from the breach of French President

Macron's campaign e-mails, the theft

of personal details from Equifax,

could 2018 Osi new threats,

especially as the Internet grows in

cryptocurrencies like the Queen? I

put it to Bryce Bowden from Fire

ice.

Criminals always fire that

might follow the money. We have seen

bitcoins skyrocketing. Criminals are

starting to focus, turned their

attention to dealing the point --

Bitcoin from the currency exchanges.

Everyone would say this before the

cryptocurrency became popular and we

saw some countries starting to

regulate its trading, even in Jamie

Dimon from JPMorgan said in

September it was a fraud. Now is

saying that only if controlled and

properly regulated that we could see

more support for bitcoin.

There is a

lot of support today. The reality

is, from eight criminal perspective,

it creates a huge amount of

opportunity. Not only can you create

extortion a massive scale, you can

create that in such a way that

enables you to hide the traceability

of the funds. That means the police

and law enforcement organisations

really struggle.

Is already a

problem you see in terms of trading

the cryptocurrencies and the

Bitcoins? Are we seeing a cyber

security issues?

The reality is the

financial organisations that are

providing those exchanges are not

yet at the level of security and

liquidity and accountability with

the traditional organisations. It is

just data after all. The safeguards

are not as well designed and built

as we seek in the traditional

markets. Yes, there is a lot of risk

there. I think that will come out

over the next few months.

Like

sharing services have done pretty

well in countries like China and

Singapore. But in Australia it is

another story. They are facing

complaints about bicycles on the

street and piling up on the beaches.

Will Australia's ever embrace the

system? Let us find out. --

Australians.

They are just lying down randomly

all over the place.

I think it is a

good idea. I do not know if it will

work. People have their old bikes

that they write.

People are trolling

the system.

They are parked where ever they are

left. Often pushed over on the side

of the row, in the gutter. They are

a major issue, they are

uncontrolled, they need to operate

in a better way.

Based on experience from other

countries, it would normally take 6-

12 months for people to get used to

it or to get an understanding of

that and enjoy the service. You get

the service itself, after all. After

that it is convenient for people, it

is healthier, green. A lot of people

don't understand.

Here in Singapore, we are starting

to share not just bicycles, but also

electric cars. There is a service

that 80 electric cars and 100

charging points across the island

this afternoon. We found out more

about these electric car vehicles.

What do they show?

That is right. We

were on the side of a fairly quiet

street in Singapore were two of

these cars parked on the side of the

street. They were being charged. But

they looked kind of lonely. The did

not look like much if you look at

the footage.

No-one tried to drive

them?

No, they are technically open

later today. This firm, BlueSG, they

have ambitious plans. A fleet of 80

cars now. They plan to expand to

about 1000 cars by 2020. From about

30 charging stations around the

island, they plan to expand that

number. That will put Singapore

behind Paris in terms of having the

largest electric car sharing scheme

in the world. I talked to be firm

and they said they were doing this

because they thought Singapore was a

good place to start in Asia, it has

great infrastructure. And we know

that the price of private cars, we

have them, they are exorbitant. Your

regular sedan costs four times more

here than it does in the US. They

think all of that will make it

attractive, an attractive

proposition for Singaporeans.

Singapore is acting as a microcosm

to the rest of the world. There is a

real transformation happening in the

transportation industry. You just

saw it in that bike sharing report.

You have car riding apps like Uber.

This move away from the classic

fossil fuels cars, many people have

said they will stop selling those

cars, China, Britain, France,

Norway, and Aggar Singapore as well.

Will you try to drive one? I am

going to try this weekend. Thank you

so much. My colleague on the

electric car vehicle market in

Singapore. Before we go, let us look

at the market and Asian stocks.

Could be moving sideways. As you can

see on the screens. For the Hang

Seng and the Australian market, this

is after Wall Street and slightly

higher as investors shrugged off an

explosion in Times Square that

resulted in a handful of injuries.

With that we end this addition of

Asia Business Report. Thank you so

much are investing