31/01/2018 Asia Business Report

before evidence showing

he was innocent was disclosed.

Now on BBC News, all the latest

business news live from Singapore.

The economy, trade and

infrastructure, which of these hot

topics will Donald Trump focus on at

his first State of the Union

address?

And UK Prime Minister Theresa May

travels to China with the tricky

task of improving trade relations

post-Brexit.

Good morning, Asia. Hello, world.

It's a Wednesday, glad you could

join us for another exciting

addition of Asia Business Report,

I'm Rico Hizon. Well, in about half

an hour the US President Donald

Trump will be delivering his State

of the Union address. Immigration

policy is expected to be the

centrepiece but there are

expectations he will continue with

the tone he took at the World

Economic Forum about the state of

global trade.

We cannot have free and open trade

if some countries exploit the system

at the expense of others.

Well, the president's speech is

expected to hit on the economy as

well as military buildup and

infrastructure spending, which Trump

has said will come up to 1.7

trillion US dollars. But everyone's

waiting on the details in terms of

what portion will be from the

government and how much will be

funded by the private sector.

Earlier I spoke with someone from

the US studies centre at the

university of Sydney and I asked him

if Donald Trump was likely to

announce more tariffs.

I doubt there

announce more tariffs.

I doubt there will

announce more tariffs.

I doubt there will be

announce more tariffs.

I doubt there will be new

announce more tariffs.

I doubt there will be new tariffs

announce more tariffs.

I doubt there will be new tariffs

announced in the speech itself but

there's definitely going to be a

continuation of what he said at

Davos in terms of being more

aggressive to take on what he called

economic aggression in the global

trade system. It's basically China

where he is trying to take on what

he thinks is unfair trade practices

there. While he may not announce new

tariffs, I think he will definitely

announce some core principles in

terms of taking on economic

aggression in China.

What do you

think will these specific principles

be?

I think he will talk about free

but their trade. What does that

mean? At Davos he talked about how

he may be open to joining the

Trans-Pacific Partnership, TPP, now

known as CP TPP. He may say that

again, something about that, but

ultimately he will want their trade

deals and the specifics of that are

still coming out in terms of

negotiations with career,

negotiations with Nafta between

Mexico and the US. The Trump

administration is focused

particularly on balance of trade, in

my opinion and economically

irrelevant topic but something that

means a lot to him.

Do you think the

chorus or the career US free trade

arrangement can be renegotiated or

will it be cancelled?

-- Korea. It

is still up in the air. If you look

at what he's doing with Nafta

between Canada, the US and Mexico,

it looked like he was going to

cancel it and he was sure of it and

he was persuaded at the last minute

not to so it's a tough thing to

predict, his presidency.

You have

Paris being slapped on some Asian

goods -- tariffs. Then you have the

renegotiation of trade arrangements.

What do you think will be Trump...

The positive impact of Trump's

agenda for Asia, will it be good or

bad?

Right now it looks like for

those in the renegotiated CP TPP it

looks OK but if you look at what TPP

was before the US left, it was 40%

of the global GDP and now it is less

than half. I think Asia wants the US

to join the Asian architecture, as

set up by the Asian global trade

architecture by the Obama

administration and led by the Obama

administration, but it's very

unlikely that I see them joining

that and it's unfortunate for the US

in particular.

We will bring you the State of the

Union address of President Donald

Trump in full, that starts at 0200

GMT, 10am Hong Kong Singapore time,

right here on BBC World News. In

other news, Indian ride hailing

company Hola announced plans to

enter the Australian market, its

first overseas foray. They will

begin inviting private vehicle

owners and driver partners to work

with it in cities like Sydney,

Melbourne and Perth with plans to

start commercial operations early

this year. Let's go to Delhi and we

are joined by our business reporter.

How does this Indian start-up plan

to compete against its bigger rival,

Uber, in Australia?

It has a wealth

of seven years of experience

operating in a tough market

conditions like India, its present

in over 100 cities in India and has

125 million customer base. It's been

able to lead the sector. Here it is

known for providing Electric

vehicles, a first, and it has Ola

Play, and it is connected with local

food services, local transportation

and bikes, this good work in

Australia. It has made a start by

offering lower conditions to private

hire vehicle owners, which could

lead to a competitive commission war

in Australia if the other players

get in but conditions in the

Australian market are quite

different, as you rightly pointed

out. Uber has the advantage of being

their first, unlike in India, where

Ola had an advantage over Uber.

There are local Australian

aggregators who will be competing

against them and also Taxify,

present in Australia. Between the

Uber and Ola, one common thread, and

that's the Japanese investor

Softbank. Even while they are

competing, you have a common

investor, Japanese Softbank, who

will be laughing all the way because

the competition leads to greater

customer base.

Ola versus Uber in

Australia. We will be looking

forward to that tough competition in

the country.

Moving on to other business news

making headlines and Samsung

Electronics has reported a record is

the 3% jump in its fourth-quarter

net profit. The company posted

profitability of $11.4 billion

mainly driven by demand for its

memory chips and display panels. The

South Korean giant's shares surging

more than 8% after it unveiled a

massive 50 to one stock split.

Facebook is banning ads for crypto

currencies and initial coin

offerings. The social media giant

said they are looking to prohibit

the promotion of financial products

that are frequently associated with

misleading or deceptive promotional

practices. However, the policy is

being kept broad and may be fine

tuned.

The chief executive of surfing

company board riders, formerly known

as Quicksilver, has gone missing.

French coastguards are searching for

the man after his boat was found

washed ashore without him. The

54-year-old Frenchman had set sail

on Tuesday morning but did not

return. His company also owns DC

shoes and the Roxy clothing brands.

British Prime Minister Theresa May

are three-day China tour today with

a. Word before going to Beijing and

shy Shanghai later in the week. The

Prime Minister will be holding talks

with President Xi and she will meet

with business leaders and students.

It is hugely important and that's

what this trip is mainly about,

post-Brexit. We have an op-ed in

this morning's Financial Times and

this is what isn't in those

paragraphs. No mention of human

rights, perhaps not a surprise but

nonetheless many critics think

people like her, prominent

politicians, should be pointing to

their human rights abuses. No

mention of President Xi's pet

project, the belt Road initiative,

that massive infrastructure project

led by China heading west. That

apparently been a bone of

contention, the Chinese leadership

would like to see her mention that

to give it added credibility.

There's talk of dialogue, that sets

the tone of what we can expect in

terms of Theresa May's dealings with

President Xi and China's Premier.

She will talk about Varsity in the

steel industry and IT intellectual

property and respecting the rule

book on global free trade --

capacity. There's talk about China

not seeing eye to eye with the UK

but she will describe them as

partners going forward. Looking at

China's growing economy, this is

what the Chinese owner of House of

Fraser said to me this week, nobody

can ignore China now and Theresa May

is in that position.

Let's look at

the markets, currently trimming

earlier losses, down by 13 points

for the Nikkei 225.

Thanks for watching, I'm Rico Hizon,