20/02/2018 Asia Business Report

I'm Sharanjit Leyl with BBC News.

Our top story: Students have staged

a protest outside the White House,

demanding action on gun control.

President Trump has said he supports

efforts to improve background checks

on gun buyers in the wake

of the Florida school shooting that

left seventeen people dead.

A UNICEF report on global infant

mortality has found that many

newborn deaths are preventable.

Around the world, 2.6 million babies

die each year before turning

one month old.

And this story is

popular on BBC.com.

Fast food chain KFC has been forced

to temporarily close around six

hundred of its restaurants

across the UK and Ireland

after delivery problems caused them

to run out of their most important

ingredient - chicken.

KFC said it had been let down

by a company that took

over its supply chain last week.

That's all from me for now.

Stay with BBC News.

And the top story here in the UK.

Theresa May has launched her

year-long review of higher education

funding in England, but has already

ruled out completely

scrapping tuition fees.

The Prime Minister said

she understood the "serious

concerns" of students who struggle

to afford the cost of studying

for a degree.

Now on BBC News, all the latest

business news live from Singapore.

A changing of the guard at HSBC.

Will a new leadership mean more

profits for the banking giant? And

Richard Branson tells the BBC about

his plans to build the Hyperloop

train in India. Its Tuesday. Good

morning, Asia. Hello, world. Glad

you could join us. HSBC will have a

new CEO taking the helm today after

major restructuring turned its

fortunes around. UK-based lender

reports full earnings and many will

be watching for signs that the

bank's pivot to Asia will be a

success. In the third quarter of

last year, nearly 90% of its pre-tax

profit came from here in the region.

Asia has been a key driving growth

in the loans, insurance and wealth

management business. The bank is

betting big on the Pearl River

Delta, the world's most populous

urban area, by investing billions of

dollars in infrastructure and the

area but as Stuart Gulliver hands

over to John Flint, will this

strategy continue?

HSBC is in a

sense of an Asian bank, it makes

most of its profit out of Hong Kong.

The UK is not even second or third.

But aren't they putting too many

eggs in one basket? Are they betting

too much of Asia?

It's a global

bank. Yes, but in all these years,

Hong Kong and Asia has been the

anchor underpinning HSBC. Hong

Kong's retail business is the engine

which keeps the bank going.

How

different for the management bile --

management style be?

Stuart

Gulliver, Oxbridge, trader, global.

John Flint, Polytechnic, sportsman,

on the ground, retail builder. I

expect to see John Flint on the

ground and working the machinery and

bringing it back to what its

original focus is which is asset

heavy mortgages, retail, wealth

management, those types of

businesses.

Let's create a job

description for John Flint.

John

Flint has to demonstrate a digital

strategy for the bank, it is the one

global bank which doesn't seem to

that articulated one very strongly.

He needs to up the fees side of the

business and not be so asset

dependent on the cost part, it is

still nagging. He needs to work on

that to bring global costs down.

15

to 2018 seems to be rising

inflation. Will HSBC Biela to use it

to their advantage?

HSBC is the most

organic commercial global bank. The

others have been making money from

trading accounts, investment

banking, global strategy. HSBC is on

the ground, a retail bank and that

is where it will be seeing more

benefit from rising interest rates

than the other banks.

How will

Brexit impact it? Or will they be

shielded?

Brexit is a distraction.

Look at the numbers. Despite the

good topline numbers, the bottomline

is very challenged. Brexit will add

a lot more cost. The idea of having

a front in London and others and so

on, it will be a distraction.

In

other business news, five Central

American countries will sign a free

trade arrangement with South Korea

this week after more than two years

of talks to ease tariffs and

barriers on a range of products.

Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras,

Nicaraguans, and Panama will sign on

to the deal. Guatemala will remain

outside pending negotiations.

Central America imported more than

$1 billion from South Korea and

exported $143 million to the

country. Finger licking but gone

missing. KFC has ruffled a few

feathers after closing hundreds of

its restaurants across the UK and

Ireland because of a shortage of

chicken. The problem arose over the

weekend after the fast food chain

switched its contract to DHL. The

delivery company has blamed the

problem on operational issues. KFC

apologised saying it let customers

down but getting chicken to 900

restaurants is very complex. Richard

Branson wants to bring a futuristic

Hyperloop style train system to

India. He signed a preliminary

arrangement with the Prime Minister

to build a route that will connect

the cities of Pune and Mumbai and 25

minutes, saving three hours. We met

with him and asked whether this

could become a reality.

Look, there are going to be

naysayers at the start of any new

industry and our right to be

naysayers until we have actually

proven wrong. The upside of it is

gigantic. Trains made a very big

difference to India in the last

century. I believe that Hyperloop

will be the giant step forward that

India needs. Hyperloop can connect

most of the major cities in India in

well under two hours.

You have to

make sure that the cost is

reasonable because the cost of

building is too high. Certainly in

countries like India where basic

transportation and infrastructure is

an issue. A lot of governments might

find the idea interesting but the

project cost could be too high and

they would get turned off.

Firstly,

the cost of building Hyperloop would

be private money. The cost to the

passenger of travelling on a virgin

Hyperloop will be competitive with

any high-speed train and we believe

quite a lot less. We think we can

build virgin Hyperloop for a lot

less than you can build a high-speed

train. Therefore, we should be able

to charge less.

Recent deal friend

and rival Elon Musk launched the

fault can heavy rocket. You said you

are a bit jealous.

You said it could

be this year? I would be very

disappointed if it's not this year.

Before other people go up, we'll

have our break, test pilot is going

up. And I will go up.

Will we see

you going up this year?

I would

obviously love to go up this year so

we will see how it goes.

You've been

trying to do this a long time. As

Elon Musk increased the pressure?

In

this business, there must be no

pressure. We spent 12 years getting

this part. We will not rush

unnecessarily to be the first to put

people into space. If we happen to

be the first to put people into

space, I hope Elon Musk would do the

same but we'll see how it goes. The

reason he has not put people into

space is because he wants to be sure

of their safety.

Stating that India and Canada's

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

continues a week-long visit to

promote trade and investment. It is

his first visit to India since

taking office. He will meet the

Prime Minister with an agenda

covering energy and education and

infrastructure. For more, we are

joined by a macro -- or more, we are

joined by Devina Gupta. It looks

like both countries want to increase

trade and investment?

Yes, and it is

down to business for Justin Trudeau

who will be meeting Mumbai business

leaders in the financial hub of the

country. India and Canada trade is

at about $8 billion and Justin could

I was looking to expand it. India is

crucial for Canada agricultural

produce. Almost a third of Canadian

exports to India are agricultural

produce for dental and other pulses

but also its clean technology where

Canada would be hoping to see the

deal with India. -- lentils. A very

crucial deal of $280 million to

supply uranium for India's nuclear

power plants. Going ahead, looking

at green technology. There is a

retinue of businessmen from Canada.

Today will be a day-long crucial

meeting.

A lot of high-profile CEOs

and leaders visiting India. You have

the son of the US President visiting

Delhi. There it a business trip or

is it a political trip?

It is purely

a commercial trip. Look at these

adverts which are out in almost

every national daily. India is the

largest market for Trump real estate

products.

Thank you so much the

update, Devina Gupta there are

joining us from Delhi. And with that

we end this edition of Asia Business

Report. Have a productive day ahead.

Goodbye Furnell.