0:00:00 > 0:00:00with causing death by dangerous driving after a crash that killed
0:00:00 > 0:00:02three teenagers in West London.
0:00:02 > 0:00:18Now on BBC News, all the latest business news live from Singapore.
0:00:18 > 0:00:24The chief Janet Yellen's swansong as she chairs the last meeting this
0:00:24 > 0:00:28week. What can we expect on US interest rates? And young tech
0:00:28 > 0:00:33entrepreneurs in Taipei are ditching the traditional culture of playing
0:00:33 > 0:00:43it safe. Welcome to Asia Business Report, I'm Sharanjit Leyl. Now, it
0:00:43 > 0:00:47is the key week for the Federal Reserve. Janet Yellen will chair the
0:00:47 > 0:00:53last meeting of the Federal open market committee, or the FOMC,
0:00:53 > 0:01:01before handing over the reins to Jerome Powell, and the two day
0:01:01 > 0:01:04meeting will end on Wednesday where it is expected to keep rates
0:01:04 > 0:01:08unchanged. Other items on the calendar this week include the
0:01:08 > 0:01:11United States and South Korea entering into their second round of
0:01:11 > 0:01:16talks to try to salvage their troubled bilateral trade agreement.
0:01:16 > 0:01:20That also happens on Wednesday. And on Thursday we will see the Titans
0:01:20 > 0:01:27of the tech world, the likes of Alibaba, Alphabet, and Amazon,
0:01:27 > 0:01:32posting their earnings that day. I spoke earlier to the chief
0:01:32 > 0:01:37investment officer for the Asia-Pacific at Deutsche bank.We
0:01:37 > 0:01:41don't really think there will be any material announcement, because as we
0:01:41 > 0:01:47said, it is the last meeting as chairwoman, so hence they will keep
0:01:47 > 0:01:53the interest rate unchanged until of course she hands over to Jerome
0:01:53 > 0:01:58Powell, and then we would expect the first rate hike to happen in March.
0:01:58 > 0:02:01And we know that in the interim we have the low interest rate
0:02:01 > 0:02:05environment. Yes, there have been small hikes, but we have also had US
0:02:05 > 0:02:09tax cuts which have been helping corporate sentiment a great deal,
0:02:09 > 0:02:12driving up those stock markets, for instance. When do you think these
0:02:12 > 0:02:18will start to have an impact?So we think the risk is more on the
0:02:18 > 0:02:23upside, especially on inflation. So if tax reform comes through much
0:02:23 > 0:02:27better than expected, we have seen and heard already the example of
0:02:27 > 0:02:30Apple announcing they will move much of their money back to the US, and
0:02:30 > 0:02:36hence this can cause inflation may be to move even higher than the Fed
0:02:36 > 0:02:42would expect, and hence then they might be a little bit more
0:02:42 > 0:02:48expressive than the three rate hikes the markets have priced in now.Now,
0:02:48 > 0:02:54if you don't own any IKEA furniture yourself, you probably know someone
0:02:54 > 0:03:00who has struggled to put together an IKEA bookshelf with an Allen key,
0:03:00 > 0:03:03for instance. We know the furniture is pretty much everywhere, and that
0:03:03 > 0:03:08is why tributes have been flowing in for the founder of the Swedish
0:03:08 > 0:03:13furniture giant, Ingvar Kamprad, who has died over the weekend. We are
0:03:13 > 0:03:17joined by our business reporter in the studio to tell us more about
0:03:17 > 0:03:21him.He has been described as one of the world's greatest entrepreneurs
0:03:21 > 0:03:28and as the man who democratised furniture, making it accessible. He
0:03:28 > 0:03:32was born in 1926 on a small farm, struggling with dyslexia but having
0:03:32 > 0:03:37a very canny business sense. He started selling mattresses, before
0:03:37 > 0:03:41launching a mail order business called IKEA, which has since grown
0:03:41 > 0:03:45to become the world's biggest furniture retailer. There are more
0:03:45 > 0:03:52than 400 stores in 49 countries now and it rakes in 40 billion US
0:03:52 > 0:03:56dollars a year. But his life was not without controversy, he was forced
0:03:56 > 0:04:01to apologise for supporting fascist groups when he was younger. He has
0:04:01 > 0:04:05called that the greatest mistake of his life. He also suffered from
0:04:05 > 0:04:08alcoholism and lived much of his life outside Sweden, settling in
0:04:08 > 0:04:14Switzerland because he did not want to pay Sweden's income taxes.Sounds
0:04:14 > 0:04:18like he had a colourful life indeed, but what kind of corporate legacy
0:04:18 > 0:04:22does he leave? What happens to IKEA now?There are a couple of things,
0:04:22 > 0:04:27he made sure that IKEA could not be broken up. He wanted it to remain a
0:04:27 > 0:04:31private company and not be listed on the stock market so he created a
0:04:31 > 0:04:33complicated business structure. The other thing is his corporate
0:04:33 > 0:04:38philosophy lives on, he thinks simplicity is great and waste is
0:04:38 > 0:04:43sinful, so he was a very frugal man, one of the world's richest man with
0:04:43 > 0:04:48a fortune estimated at $60 billion but he flew economy class, stayed in
0:04:48 > 0:04:52budget hotels, he recycled his tea bags, so he took that ethos and he
0:04:52 > 0:04:57has applied it so that everything is kept low cost and people are not
0:04:57 > 0:05:04wasteful.Thank you for that on Ingvar Kamprad, who has died at 91.
0:05:04 > 0:05:09The city of Taipei is stepping up efforts to turn itself into a hub
0:05:09 > 0:05:12for start-up technology companies. One major challenge has been
0:05:12 > 0:05:16encouraging people to try to strike out on their own, and so officials
0:05:16 > 0:05:20in Taipei are working hard to tackle a culture of playing it safe. We
0:05:20 > 0:05:24will take a look at whether that is working in our next instalment of
0:05:24 > 0:05:34Asia's Silicon Valley's.
0:05:46 > 0:05:49-- Valleys.So basically you are stepping into another world, where
0:05:49 > 0:05:54you can see sound. You can move it around, change the actual pitch. You
0:05:54 > 0:06:00are inside a song. It is going to really disrupt everything, so I
0:06:00 > 0:06:06pretty much just focus everything I do, and pretty much dropped all of
0:06:06 > 0:06:17my clients and started working in PR. -- VR.
0:06:27 > 0:06:30People have to be more optimistic, more willing to hear about
0:06:30 > 0:06:35start-ups, helping them to do the right things. We have to find a way
0:06:35 > 0:06:37to help them, to support them.
0:06:53 > 0:07:03It is the general approach of being too reserved and not rewarding
0:07:03 > 0:07:04people who take risks.
0:07:10 > 0:07:17And staying with tech, Microsoft says not all US firms were
0:07:17 > 0:07:20necessarily benefit from Donald Trump's tax reforms, which have
0:07:20 > 0:07:26slashed the corporate rate to 21%. Many tech giants are worried about
0:07:26 > 0:07:28the impact of immigration restrictions. The BBC's Sally
0:07:28 > 0:07:40Gunnell. -- Sally Bundock asked the company's president about it.The
0:07:40 > 0:07:45lifeblood of technology is always people. You always have to do a
0:07:45 > 0:07:48great job of hiring locally, but you are going to succeed on a global
0:07:48 > 0:07:52basis only if you have a world-class team which has team members from
0:07:52 > 0:07:56around the world. So immigration is fundamental to all of us in the tech
0:07:56 > 0:08:02sector, and that is why we have been so vocal on immigration issues.You
0:08:02 > 0:08:05were impacted it is accompanied by the Intel chip security breach, as
0:08:05 > 0:08:09it were. Many people worldwide, not just Microsoft users, but other
0:08:09 > 0:08:19Apple users, were left hanging for weeks. That was handled rather
0:08:19 > 0:08:23badly, do you think?First of all, there is a lot of opportunity to
0:08:23 > 0:08:27learn, as there always is. It is a security issue which affect all of
0:08:27 > 0:08:30the chips, most of the devices and operating systems in the world. The
0:08:30 > 0:08:34challenge with these kinds of questions is that you don't want to
0:08:34 > 0:08:36publish the news about a vulnerability immediately because
0:08:36 > 0:08:41you don't want the news about it to be out before it is fixed. That is
0:08:41 > 0:08:45like putting a big flashing light and asking every cyber criminal to
0:08:45 > 0:08:49attack here. That is the worst thing we can do in terms of public safety.
0:08:49 > 0:08:53At the same time we are all having to learn how we work together across
0:08:53 > 0:08:58the industry, how do we move as fast as we can to fix the problem, which
0:08:58 > 0:09:03requires collaboration, and still think about these questions you are
0:09:03 > 0:09:12quite rightly raising as well.Those who want to commit these cyber
0:09:12 > 0:09:17crimes are there, fast, and wanting to commit these crimes all the time.
0:09:17 > 0:09:21I think in terms of cyber security the industry doesn't good job most
0:09:21 > 0:09:25days in terms of putting public safety and consumer security at
0:09:25 > 0:09:33first. We have lots of other areas where we can compete, we need to fix
0:09:33 > 0:09:38these problems and protect people, and that I find each day, most
0:09:38 > 0:09:43times, is the overriding focus.And Australia's Commonwealth Bank has
0:09:43 > 0:09:47named its new chief executive, who will take over from the current boss
0:09:47 > 0:09:51in April. He comes in at a challenging time for Australia's top
0:09:51 > 0:09:56lender, which has been accused of a series of scandals including
0:09:56 > 0:10:02allegedly breaching money laundering laws. And Coincheck will use its own
0:10:02 > 0:10:07funds to refund customers after they lost millions of dollars in digital
0:10:07 > 0:10:14assets. The hackers stole NEM, which is the biggest currency by market
0:10:14 > 0:10:14cap.
0:10:14 > 0:10:17is the biggest currency by market cap. And on the markets, we can tell
0:10:17 > 0:10:21you that they are all pretty much higher. The Nikkei, which has opened
0:10:21 > 0:10:26as well, is higher. They are taking their cues from Wall Street which
0:10:26 > 0:10:31closed at another record high. We know that the yen is actually
0:10:31 > 0:10:34strengthening, taking a toll on exporters. That is it for this
0:10:34 > 0:10:35edition of Asia Business