13/12/2017 Asia Business Report

Detectives believe it

was a targeted attack.

Now, all the latest business news

live from Singapore.

the U-turn for Uber as it strikes

deals with taxi operators in

Singapore. And the shopping mall

operator Westfield has sold the

European giant for $25 billion.

Good morning, Asia, hello, world.

It's a Wednesday.

Glad you could join us

for Asia Business Report.

I'm Rico Hizon.

we start off with Uber and it is

back in the headlines, this time for

forging partnerships they taxi

operator in Thailand. Lastly, it

also close the deal with a company

here in Singapore. It is a major

change for the company. Travis

Kalanick step down five months ago

because of investor pressure and

allegations of sexual harassment,

and was replaced by a new CEO. The

scandal did not and there, last

month it was revealed that they had

suffered a data breach in 2016,

impacting 57 million users. And the

company continues to lose money,

reporting a loss of 1.5 billion US

dollars in the third quarter of this

year. Earlier, a spoke to about's

chief business officer for

Asia-Pacific and I started by asking

him what the new partnership in

Thailand will mean for the company.

This taxi partnership that we will

announce today will give riders more

options in Bangkok, give riders

opportunity to increase utilisation

and it is a great partnership

brought together by our technology.

Are you planning to do more of these

partnerships with taxi operators

around Southeast Asia?

We are,

today, in Bangkok, we're seventh. We

had a big announcement with Comfort

in Singapore on Friday and today in

Bangkok will be truly exciting as

well.

Over the past Mac two years,

you had Uber retreating from China.

It struck a deal, as you mentioned,

with the Singapore company and our

partnership with a Thailand taxi

operator. Is ever forging these

deals because you have to make up

for lost ground to the competition

in Asia?

Not at all, the Singapore

deal and Comfort is truly expensive,

it is great for Singapore drivers

and riders and it is great for Uber

and Comfort, these are two companies

coming together to provide more

options. We're really excited about

the rollout the back of this.

Last

time you on the BBC, he discussed

the scandals and the cultural issues

within Uber. Now that you are on

board, since August, has this

started to change?

We are making

terrific strides and this is coming

from a terrific new CEO, who is

driving change from the top. But

every week, I am out with our teams,

speaking with all of our people

about culture, compliance, making

sure that we are growing in a way

that behind this incredible growth

we've had, with all the proper

procedures and culture in place.

A

lot of positive things to look

forward to from Uber, but what

challenging things will either be

facing in 2018?

If you look around

the region, one of our biggest

challenges is how help cities save

-- solve these congestion issues.

That is one of the big things we are

doing around the region, making sure

we are providing the local

transport, multimodal solutions,

whatever it is, so that writers and

drivers in Singapore and across the

region have great year and beyond.

About's chief financial officer for

Asia-Pacific. Living under other

news and what could be Australia's

is ever takeover, the shopping at

operator Westfield has agreed to

sell the group for $25 billion to a

French group. An estimated 8640

stores shut their doors in America

this year, and that is the highest

number since the 2008 financial

crisis. Earlier, I spoke to a retail

technology expert and ask him if

Moores will be able to compete.

There is definitely a struggle

because the online is getting more

and more penetration, however, I

think this is not the Apocalypse or

the end of work and brick and mortar

retail, we did not have the

technology to do it and now we do

and that is where we are heading.

You were talking about

transformation, why hasn't that

mindset changed for Asian shoppers

to e-commerce?

I think it is not

necessarily Southeast Asian or the

West, I think it is eroding forces

in the markets. I think it is really

the penetration of the online

technology and market places, there

are certain clear example is like

South Korea, Singapore, China, but

clearly there are certain markets,

Indonesia, still in need of

development, like India. I think the

online is still taking off, so they

still have to be more and more

development of online shopping that

has to happen.

So what are the

trends right now in retail

technology? So they could be

synergies between brick and mortar

and online retail?

That is correct,

I think that is the future of

retail, that we envision. There is

going to be more and more

convergence of online and off-line,

in terms of the consumer behaviour,

other consumer is to shop going

forward. So now that there are

technologies like block chain

available, to enable about.

And that

was a retail technology expert. In

other news, social media giant

Facebook has dismissed a former

executive's comments, that said that

the sight was destroying the way

society works. Facebook's former

vice president for use growth says

he feels enormous guilt over the

size creation and that social media

left people filling vacant and

empty, but Facebook said he had not

been at the company for six years,

but it was a different company now

and was working hard to improve.

Toshiba has settled its legal

disputes with US partner, Western

Digital, clearing the way for the

multi- billion-dollar sale of its

business. Westinghouse wrapped up

billions of dollars in losses, the

sale of its chip unit is a key part

of Toshiba's rescue initiatives. The

Federal reserve is expected to raise

rates at the end of their two-day

meeting on Wednesday, as the US

economy improves. US president

Donald Trump likes to take credit

for America's economy but in the

case of markets, that may not

actually be the case. In yet another

campaign style event, US President

Donald Trump took to the stage to

talk about his accomplishments,

among them US markets.

The stock

market is hitting an all-time high

record for another, and think of

this, 86 times since election day,

86 times... It hit a record, 86

times. And we are going to keep it

going.

And it does not stop there,

in tweet after Tweet of the tweet,

the President has been praising the

record highs on financial markets

and taking credit for it. But how

much of these skyrocket valuations

can really be attributed to the

President? One economist says this

has more to do with the Federal

reserve and its programme of

quantitative easing, when the US

central bank was buying up bonds to

support the US economy after this

financial crisis.

There is this

massive amount of cash floating

around the world, and so that is

what is driving this up. Originally,

it was QED, 90% of the growth in the

market has been bombed out since

2008.

-- QE.

Some of the credit needs to go to

the woman who has been guiding the

current ship, Federal Reserve

chairwoman Janet Yellen. Donald

Trump decided ironically, not to

renew Janet Yellen for a second

term. So what happens now? Janet

Yellen leaves the top spot as

Federal reserve chair, and the

central bank is trying to win the US

offered is really this monetary

policies and get the economy to

stand on its own two feet, which

means US market may not always make

for the best rallying cry for

President Trump. Let's have a look

now at the Asian stock markets, and

currently most of them are in

positive territory. The All

Ordinaries index is in positive

territory by seven points, this is

after the Dow Jones industrial

average and the S&P 500 pushed to

record highs overnight as Congress

made progress on the tax cuts

planned, and with expectations for

high interest rate when the Federal

reserve makes a decision later

today. Thank you so much