06/03/2018 Asia Business Report

the cyclist Sir Bradley Wiggins,

has told the BBC he is not a drugs

cheat, after a Parliamentary report

accused him of using an asthma drug

to enhance his performance.

Now on BBC News, all the latest

business news live from Singapore.

Global shares are higher, as

investors shrugged off fears of a

trade war. And electric cars move

into the fast lane. How new

technology is bringing radical

changes to the auto industry. Good

morning, welcome to Asia Business

Report, live from Singapore, with

me, Mariko Oi. After a few days of

panic selloff switch we saw,

investors seem less nervous about

President Donald Trump's threat to

impose tariffs on steel and

aluminium. On Wall Street, the Dow

broke a four they losing streak, up

1.4%. Investors started to see the

President's comments as a

negotiating tool after he tweeted

that Canada and Mexico could avoid

his proposed tariffs if they agreed

on a new North American Free Trade

Agreement. We are now seeing Asia

following Wall Street, with the

Nikkei up by 2%. But is their

enthusiasm premature? I put that

question to my colleague Joe Miller

in New York.

They do seem quite

optimistic about it at the close

today, but earlier this morning,

when the President tweeted those

things and seemed to tie the fate of

these tariffs to Nafta, initially

the read on Wall Street was that

this was bad news, that this was the

President doubling down on these

plans to put 25% tariffs on steel,

10% on aluminium, that they thought

in turn would hurt US businesses

like car makers which rely on US

steel. But as the day wore on,

despite the fact that President in

the Oval Office said he was not

backing down when it came to these

tariffs, I think people started to

see this as a negotiating position,

as you said. The reason for that is

we have seen a really strong

backlash from people within the

President's own Republican Party. We

have seen house leader Paul Ryan

coming out to say he strongly urges

the President to reconsider, and we

have seen other Senate Republicans

say similar things. So it is

beginning to look as though the ink

has not dried on these tariffs yet,

and there may be some tempering of

this position. That is why we have

seen the markets, or at least the

Dow Jones, closed some 300 point up

today.

In other business news,

speaking on proposed tariffs on

imported steel and aluminium, car

giants General Motors and Ford would

suffer a $1 billion profit hit

according to analysts at Goldman

Sachs who say the tariffs proposed

by President Trump could result in

increased costs. Harley-Davidson

says a punitive or territory tariffs

on its motorcycles in any market

would have a significant impact on

its sales there. The European

Commission's president last week

threatened to impose tariffs on

their products if President Trump

followed through on a plan to impose

global duties on aluminium and

steel. Harley said in a statement

that it supports free and fair trade

and the proposed import tariffs

would drive up costs for all

products made with aluminium and

steel regardless of their origin. As

you can imagine, President Trump's

threats to impose those tariffs have

certainly caused a stir ahead of

this week's Geneva auto show. Most

people in the industry appear to be

waiting to hear more details before

they decide on how to respond.

Meanwhile, at the show itself it is

business as usual and carmakers

continue to prepare themselves for

the radical change which new

technology is bringing. Part of that

change is a move towards electric

cars which is steadily gathering

momentum.

More can convenient

motoring is the dream of every car

owner Britain. The Commuta could

well be one of the answers to that

dream.

Electric cars have been

around for years but for a long time

they had an image problem. They were

seen as quirky but slow and unable

to go far before the batteries ran

out. Then Tesla came out with its

Model S. Launched in 2012, it showed

electric vehicles could be powerful,

fast and have decent range but

choice was limited. If you wanted a

high-performance electric car you

had to buy a Tesla. Now, that might

be allowed to change. This is a new

car from Jaguar which is attracting

a lot of attention at the Geneva

motor show. It is a battery electric

car and the reason that matters is

it is the first high-performance

electric vehicle to come on the

market to really challenge Tesla's

crown. So let's see what it can do.

This car matters because it is

sporty, it can do zero to 60 in 4.5

seconds and it has a maximum range

of 300 miles. As we know, range is

all-important.

The way the market is

going, there is no doubt about that.

There are still very few electric

vehicles sold, one in every 200 last

year, but the market is shifting

towards alternative drive vehicles

and we are shifting with it so this

is us entering the market.

So Jaguar

may have won the race to be the

first real challenger to Tesla at

the Top End of the market, but it

won't be the last. Because Porsche

are bringing out another

high-performance electric vehicle.

Mercedes have something similar in

the pipeline, and so does Audi. This

could become quite a crowded market.

Finally EVs have been pushed into

the mainstream, and I think with tax

incentives and people wanting less

pollution in city centres people are

starting to see the benefit in an

electric car and they are starting

to see that they are quite an

addictive, luxurious, relaxing thing

to be in.

Of course, most people

probably won't be able to afford an

upmarket electric cart like Jaguar's

I-Pace or the Has lures, but that is

not the point. They are making

people more likely to buy something

more affordable. -- Teslas. For

this, Nissan's Leaf. It is day two

of China's annual meeting of

Parliament and we are waiting on

details from a super regulator which

will keep insurance and banking

industries under one watchdog. It is

one of the crucial measures the

President has been looking at the

counter risks to the financial

system. Growth is slowing down in

China, and I spoke to a professor of

Chinese business at the University

of Sydney, who says the pressure

around the topic is starting to

shift.

There is general consensus is

that in the end growth had to be

brought down from the very high, two

digit levels, to a sustainable

level. In fact what has happened now

is that the debate about growth has

shifted away from the actual

figures. So whether 6.5 or slightly

more or slightly less is less

important than the quality of

growth, and that means growth that

is promoting domestic consumption,

building on domestic consumption, as

opposed to government investment in

big projects. That is growth which

is sustainable, that means growth

that rings a reduction of pollution,

rings among other things, better

health, and thereby makes the whole

economy, all puts the whole economy,

on a much more stable basis. That is

more important now than the actual

growth figure.

India has had its

fair share of banking scandals

lately. Now its income tax

department has discovered a scam

involving more than 400 companies

who haven't paid 100 of millions of

dollars to the government. Joining

me live from Mumbai is my colleague.

Tell us the details of this latest

scandal.

Well, it is being called

yet another fraud here in India. The

Indian income tax Department says

that around 461 million dollars

worth of money has not been

deposited with it. Indian companies

tax employees' salaries at course to

make sauce, it is called TDS, and

many companies have failed to

deposit that TDS with its income tax

department -- source. Now a large

construction firm and multinational

IT company have been implicated.

According to the income tax act in

India, not depositing that money

faces jail time of between three

months and seven years. So it is bad

news for those companies if they are

named. It is also bad news for the

government. Apart from failing to

get those revenues, it is also the

latest scam which has come to light

after a series of scams and frauds

in the last month. The biggest one

was won at a state owned bank called

the Punjab National bank. It seems

that around $2 million worth of

money was defrauded of a single

branch here in Mumbai, so there is a

lot of pressure on the government to

clean up its act and tighten its

checks and balances for these kinds

of things.

Thank you so much for

that update. I am sure we will have

more of the details as they continue

to investigate.

more of the details as they continue

to investigate. Let's take a look at

markets before we go. As we

mentioned, Wall Street recovered

overnight and now we are seeing some

rebound here in Asia as well, with

the Nikkei and Hong Kong up by

nearly 2%. In Japan, we are

monitoring the shares in steel after

a business newspaper said its boss

may be stepping down because of that

scandal over the quality of its

product, and in currencies we are

watching the euro. Of course, we had

that inconclusive weekend election

over the weekend,

that inconclusive weekend election

over the weekend, and that is it for

this edition of Asia Business