14/03/2018 Asia Business Report

In his spring

statement, the Chancellor has

revealed

forecasts for higher growth

and lower inflation and debt.

Now on BBC News, all the latest

business news live from Singapore.

More market malaise as technology

stocks lead US indices into the red.

We'll be finding out what's

troubling investors.

South Korea's gaming industry is

under scrutiny after several worker

deaths spurred a change in labour

laws.

Good morning, Asia. Hello, world.

It's Wednesday, glad you could join

us for another exciting addition of

Asia Business Report, I'm Rico Hizon

and we kick off with the financial

markets. A choppy session on Wall

Street overnight with technology

issues leading the major US indices

lower. Equities in turn put pressure

on oil prices. Here's were Wall

Street closed overnight, the Dow

Jones industrial average tumbling by

172 points, and the NASDAQ losing 77

point. Let's get an updated version

the Asian stock markets. Japan

currently down by 127 points, and

the All Ordinaries giving back 39

points.

Why are the markets heading lower?

Kim Cattrall Stern explained that

much of it is to do with the new

Deal.

The proposed merger, broad, was

thinking about buying QUALCOMM for

$117 billion, it was being scuppered

by US regulators. The committee on

foreign investment in the United

States said they had

national-security concerns about the

merger, which was all about the five

G network in the US. This is part of

a pattern we have seen of deals this

particular body has essentially

called off as a result of security

concerns, concerns about

intellectual property in the US and

they tend to be clustered in the

technology centre. In September we

saw Lattice Semiconductor in Oregon,

they tried to sell themselves to a

Chinese backed investment firm, that

deal was called off. That has left

technology stocks broadly lower as

investors grapple with this setback.

Has the sacking of Rex Tillerson by

Donald Trump had any impact on

market sentiment?

The former

Secretary of State, feels funny to

say that already, this move was

widely expected. Trump and Tillerson

had clashed pretty publicly, there

were reports there were words like

more news, I won't go much further

than that, so in some ways this was

priced into markets. We will see how

this plays out through the week --

like moron.

India and two of the country's

low-cost carriers had to cancel more

than 60 flights after its aviation

regulator grounded Airbus planes

because of faulty planes. We can go

to Delhi and join our business

correspondent. How is this affecting

the budget airline industry in

India?

It's going to be holiday

season soon and peak travel times

during the holiday season, we're

talking about two of the market

leaders in the budget airline space

with 11 of its planes grounded

between Indigo and, Air, there were

significant delays yesterday,

although the airlines made

significant arrangements -- Go Air.

Apart from the financial issues they

are looking at how to tide over the

peak travel time in summer. There

are about 45 A320s, or 11 of which

have been grounded by the top

aviation regulator, because there is

believed to be an engine glitch --

11 of which. A similar glitch was

reported in Europe as well by the

regulator. They allowed these

flights to operated if the problem

was only in one engine. In India

there's been three midair scares and

the Indian aviation regulator isn't

taking any chances. Experts predict

losses of 8000 for these airlines,

which will see a possible

replacement by next quarter only --

8000.

Thanks for joining us on Asia

Business Report -- 8000.

South Korea has some of the longest

working hours in the developed world

and the gaming industry in

particular has been under scrutiny

for making employees work huge

amounts of overtime without extra

pay. South Korea is looking to ban

employees for working more than 52

hours a week but can the gaming

industry change this culture? --

from working.

The South Korean gaming firm you

just heard Netmarble, said:

Do you remember these pictures? They

are images of plastic pollution in

Bali and the Pacific that recently

went viral. It's a growing problem

and at the Asia-Pacific Maritime

Conference taking place this week,

industry leaders are looking to

tackle the problem. Earlier Paul

Holt is, founding president and CEO

of the World Ocean Council, told us

more about the pollution issues

facing our seas.

There's a huge

range of problems, plastics has

caught a lot of attention, the

shipping industry is working to see

there are port reception facilities

around the world so when a vessel

comes into sure it can properly

dispose of the waste on the vessel

but the plastics goblin has garnered

so much attention because it is

largely a land-based source of

pollution so governments,

municipalities and others need to

manage waste to keep it from going

into the ocean.

This is where

technological innovation comes into

play?

Right, there's a lot of work

going on on a whole range of these

pollution issues affecting the

ocean.

For the plastics in particular there

is a lot of work going on creating

new kinds of plastic so we have

biodegradable plastic, but

particular with the circular

economy, preventing plastics from

getting into the ocean in the first

place is where the technology is

working.

Our companies and

governments really walking the talk?

There are a lot of good people and

good companies working to address

the problems -- are the. Especially

with the focus on Maritime in

Singapore and the Asia-Pacific

Maritime conference this week, some

of the other pollution problems we

can point to excellent efforts by

companies to understand and address

and tackle these problems with

technology developments around

issues, for example, in basic

species and the role of vessels in

transmitting those, a solutions on

the horizon for that. Some of the

water pollution issues from fuel

spills and so on being tackled

through the development of new fuel

types that then eliminate the

problem because we don't have

hydrocarbons.

But you need money and

resources to be able to do this and

many Asian countries don't have the

money to undertake these

initiatives?

The exciting part about

a lot of these solutions is that

there are business opportunities in

them to develop the technology that

creates the value that companies can

provide in selling those solutions.

That becomes part of business

operations that companies need to

weave into their business model.

The founding president and chief

executive officer of the World Ocean

Council on pollution issues facing

our seas.

That's it for this edition of Asia

Business Report. Have a productive

Wednesday, everyone. Don't forget to

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