13/02/2018 Asia Business Report

Earlier, Oxfam's deputy chief

executive, Penny Lawrence, resigned.

Now on BBC News all the latest

business news live from Singapore.

Wall Street closes higher, but our

investors nervous about what comes

next?

We will hear from a large fund

manager. And how companies are

helping clean up the oceans by

cutting down on plastic waste.

Good morning, Asia, hello world. It

is a Tuesday. Glad you could join us

for another exciting addition for

Asia Business Report. I'm Rico

Hizon. We kick off with the markets.

We saw Wall Street closing higher

overnight with the Dow Jones adding

1.7% and the broader S&P 500 hired

by 1.4%. That Mackay by. We have

seen one of the wildest runs in US

stock market history. In Asia,

markets followed Wall Street moved,

it is that make it sell trade. The

Nikkei and be indexed and South

Korea. I spoke to Shaun Taylor about

what he has been watching for in the

market right now.

The way we are

looking at inflation is we see it in

the US getting it to about 1.8 by

the end of the year. It will be two

steps forward, one step back, and

continuing that pattern. The fancy a

more confident they will reach the

2% target, finally. And probably we

will have a rate rise in March at

the next meeting. It is not

unexpected. If you look at the

behaviour of the bond market over

this period it has been reasonably

stable relative to when we have had

passed selloffs. This is an equity

issue, values had got reasonably

high, the market had done very well

in January, particularly some of the

risky markets like emerging markets

and Asia, and was due a pause. When

people are on the short volatility

trade it comes off very quickly and

they have to close their positions,

it does cause some volatility.

What

is your advice to right now for your

investors in this market volatility?

We would be more cautious on the

Treasury is going forward. Interest

rates are clearly going up and that

will affect treasuries across the

globe. We are very confident still

on corporate credit and we are

excited about equities earnings are

still getting upgraded. You will see

downgrades normally in the US.

Jussie we have seen upgrades of

4.8%. In 1.2 on revenues -- this

year we have seen.

Shaun Taylor.

President Trump has promised what he

is calling the biggest and boldest

infrastructure investment in US

history. Announcing his budget

plans, he said he wanted to spend

$1.5 trillion in roads, highways,

ports, and airports.

Joe Mellor from

New York. We have been hearing about

this month on and months and months.

The Trump Administration has

promised a big announcement on

infrastructure since at least the

summer of last year. And here it is.

The basic premise behind it is

something all parties basically

agree on, it is that America's

roads, bridges, railways, they are

travelling in the investment. It was

a big campaign promise of Donald

Trump to pour money into

infrastructure. On that almost

everyone is a line. Then a glider

where the money will come from.

Today's announcement does not really

remedy that. There is only 200

billion coming from Washington

itself, from federal funds. That is

a drop in the ocean from anyone's

standards. The rest, Donald Trump

said today, has to come from the

private sector or cities or states.

The cities and states say they don't

have the money and it is much harder

for them to borrow money than the

Federal government. They are much

more restricted when it comes to

that. They are arguing they are

never going to be able to make up

the shortfall that will get them to

$1.5 trillion in investment.

In

other business news making

headlines, Amazon is reportedly

cutting hundreds of jobs after

several years of major growth. The

layoffs were reported by the Seattle

Times, which said the actions

focused on streamlining the

company's consumer retail business.

The firm employed more than 560,000

full and part-time workers at the

end of December. There will Epernay

new $3.4 billion Cesena in Macau

just in time for the Chinese New

Year holiday. It marks the biggest

investment in the Territorian. It

comes after uncertainty after

condition of its licensors. 20

century Fox has promised to keep Sky

News in depending continue funding

the loss-making channel for five

years, as it tries to overcome

regulatory concerns over its

takeover. The deal, if approved, is

worth $15 billion. Starting today,

Japanese cryptocurrency exchange

Coincheck will allow people to

withdraw money from its portal. Just

over two weeks ago hackers stole

$530 million worth of digital money.

More on this issue and the unfolding

developments behind Coincheck, I am

joined by Mariko Oi. Have the

withdrawals started?

It has

actually. I was just looking at

Twitter. Some of the users saying

they have started to receive money.

That is only the Japanese yen and

not cryptocurrency. Not because of

their falling prices. Some of them

are not happy. They are basically

sitting on huge losses, ballooning

losses, if you like. This theft has

highlighted how vulnerable the

exchanges. It shocked the nation

which are so far embraced

cryptocurrencies, unlike neighbours

like South Korea and China which

have been cracking down on. Last

year, Japan became the first country

to nationally regulate these

exchanges. So far there have been 16

others awaiting clearance. Since

this Pack two weeks ago the

regulator has been looking into all

these exchanges and Coincheck has to

submit by the end of the day to show

how to improve security.

More

transparency. But we have seen every

falling cryptocurrency since the

beginning of the year. My colleague

and business reporter Mariko Oi. The

plastic. It is one of the favourite

packaging materials in the world. It

is cheap and efficient for

transporting goods, but only a

fraction of it is recycled. And as

an increasing number of consumers to

man's green alternatives, some

companies have been dreaming up

fresh ways to combat waste.

At least 8 million tons of plastic

ends up in the ocean each year. One

of the biggest culprits is the

consumer goods industry, plastic

packaging is often used just once

before being thrown away.

Only 10%

of plastic in the world is actually

recycled. That leaves 90% either

been buried or burned or lost into

the environment.

Now a number of

companies are trying to stem the

tide. British firm Recycling

Technologies think this machine can

be a game changer. It takes

difficult items like food wrappers,

toothpaste tubes, coffee cups, and

binliners, some very high to

bridges, and breaks down the plastic

to its raw material. At the end of

the process you get something like

this, an oil that can be sold back

to petrochemical companies to be

made back into plastic once again.

We are building a facility in

Swindon to make 200 machines per

year, each machine will do 7000 tons

plastic. That is 1.4 million tons of

recycling capacity being added into

the system every year. We would be

able to quadruple the capacity of

European recycling in the next

years.

Many plastics can currently

only be recycled ones. A company who

makes household cleaning products

once its products to be recycled

again and again.

The most

sustainable system we could have a

plastic usage is if everyone used

transparent bottles, because then

all bottles would be recycled back

and any bottle could be recycled

into any other bottle.

Plastic is a

lightweight, durable, and cheap, and

crucially it keeps food fresh. But

some companies are finding

alternatives. SAP Rutba 's use

packaging that disappears

completely.

This is compostable

material. In about six month it will

fully decompose, meaning all of the

nutrients are returned to the

natural cycle.

Small companies look

for ways to tackle the problem

plastic waste, the more we do at the

price will come down. Some firms

find they can do without plastic

after all. And the let us have a

look at the markets. Currently

better than expected. The Nikkei up

by 117 points. The Hung Phan and

open about ten minutes ago and it is

surging by 390 points. The All

Ordinaries index gaining 6.5 points.

So far all good, all in positive

territory. The three major indices

rebounded overnight with broad-based

schemes across the sector. The Dow

Jones industrial average and two

trading days, Friday and Monday, up

by more than 700 points. Overnight

gaining 1.7%. The NASDAQ up