12/08/2016 BBC Business Live

This is Business Live from BBC News with Maryam Moshiri

The world's 2nd largest economy is making less and buying less.

And all of that will have an impact on you.

Live from London, that's our top story

China's slowdown has already sparked a fall in commodity prices.

We'll be live in Shanghai to find out what it will take

Also in the programme, Google under the spotlight.

South Korea launches an anti-trade investigation.

Our Asia business hub will bring us the latest.

I wanted to put all the American markets together, a record high,

they are partying like it is 1999, because that is the last time that

happened. we'll be finding out how a computer

outage grounded Delta We'll have our very own

Rory Cellan-Jones here - looking at the technology

stories of the week. Today we want to know as US

department store Macys announces it's closing 100 stores as it's hit

by online retailers, Are you well and truly over getting

up and going into stores or do you still like the high

street retail experience? Plenty going on. We do have the

Friday feeling. We start in China -

where in the last couple of hours we've had an update about the health

of the world's second Those numbers have come

in weaker than expected - undermining hopes that the great

slowdown is at last We'll get to them in a moment -

but let's just remind ourselves Last year the Chinese economy grew

at this rate - 6.9%. That was the weakest growth China

has seen in 25 years. This year - so far -

it's even weaker. In the six months to the end of June

growth has slipped to just 6.7%. The fear has been that this

slowdown is getting worse - and that the figure

could be far lower by We've just had the latest

numbers from China's Industrial production was up 6%

year on year in July. That's weaker than the 6.2% in June

- it was expected to be the same. We were expecting the same but

didn't get it. Beijing is making great efforts to shift the economy

from the floor of the factory to one which is more consumer driven,

getting the Chinese people to spend. But on that front -

retail sales for July That's down from 10.6% in June -

and again lower than expected. And investment by firms was up 8.1%

in the seven months to July - that is also a lot lower

than expected We can go to our reporter, more

evidence of a slowdown? Yes, the last figure just mentioned is the

one that will worry people, investment in factories is a

barometer of how confident the Chinese business people feel about

the future, and these figures are not just about the state of the

economy, but also they reveal the sentiment going forward, and it is

not good. The most significant sign of a slowdown is in investment in

factories and we can take that as a sign that the Chinese business

community which a sling to the government do not feel good about

the confidence in terms of the Chinese economy -- which is linked

to the government. And also global demand. Any signs of panic within

the economy and also in terms of the real economy, how is this affecting

Chinese people? We have heard from one official, not a senior official,

but a man Abbey National statistics bureau who spoke to the media -- at

the National. He said the trend remains good, that is the message

from the officials, China is moving towards a massive change, trying to

move away from global trade and a reliance on government investment

and moving towards domestic consumption, and big lay-offs are

expected in the steel industry and the coal industry and that will take

a long time. That remains the focus of the Chinese economy, but there is

also a new normal, to quote the Chinese president, and acceptance of

the slowing economy. They cannot maintain double-digit growth, and

what they want is stability. I want to ask you, and I'm enjoying that

backdrop, by the way. People watching this, going, China, 6.7%,

many countries would give their right arm for that kind of growth,

can you explain why China needs that kind of growth, six and 7%? It wants

to get richer and to continue the effort to continue to move tens of

millions of people in this country out of poverty and move them from

the country to the cities. The only way it can continue to do that is to

have wealth and an economy which grows at rates which people, many

people, would look on with envy, and it would like to maintain something

around 6% if it is to continue on this massive effort to increase

wealth in this country and make China a richer country. There's also

politics. The politicians from the President down, they state what the

ambition will be and low and behold they tend to stick to that, and 6%

is where we are for this year and that will be humiliating for the

president and the premiers they do not manage to maintain that. --

Premier if they do not. Thanks for joining us.

German economic growth slowed less than expected in the second quarter.

Europe's biggest economy grew by 0.4% between April and June -

That was slower than the 0.7% growth it saw in the first

But it was double the rate economists were expecting.

Growth was boosted by higher exports and strong government and consumer

A new online campaign is urging fast food giant McDonald's to impose

a global ban on products from animals treated

Scientists warn that treating livestock with antibiotics

will lead to a rise in drug-resistant superbugs.

The charity ShareAction has called on consumers to email McDonald's

Last week, the fast food chain stopped using poultry

treated with antibiotics - but only in its US restaurants.

You like a bit of antibiotics with your meat? Excavation

we have a good story here. Yes, great. If you have a tablet you have

got to do it, that is how the show works. The markets are up at the

moment. People pile money into gold, don't they? Yes, when they are

worried about the global economy. We'll gold still be trading between

sellers? -- will. More headaches for the internet

search giant Google this morning. It's already been fined $6.8 million

in Russia this week for competition violations, it now faces

a new regulatory probe from South The country's antitrust watchdog

is opening a investigation into whether the company violated

it's anti-competition laws. Leesha Chee is looking into it

for us in Singapore. What is the story? The authorities

in Korea have not released many details aside from the fact that it

has to do with anti-trust violations, but local media are

saying it has to do with Google's advertising policy. This is the

second time that Korea is looking into Google for anti-competitive

behaviour. In 2013 Google was accused of forcing smartphone makers

of using its android software to preload its search engine. It was

cleared of that, but this is one of several battles that Google is

facing globally. You mentioned the case in Russia, but they are also

looking in the European Union to other anti-trust issues. $7 million

fine in Russia, that is a drop in the bucket for Google, because they

make $75 billion in revenue last year alone. Yes, no worries, have a

great weekend. We can stay with the markets, it is a party time, the

markets are partying like they haven't done since 1999, the three

US markets all reached record highs at the same time. That has had a

follow-on effect throughout Asia. There was a blip in the oil price.

There won't be two rate rises this year. Investors are looking for a

terms on their money. -- looking for returns.

Now let's head to New York where Samira Hussain can tell us

Economists expect that sales will have increased for the four skin

sect of months, it is a sign that consumers are continuing to spend --

fourth consecutive month. Two thirds of the US economy depends on

consumer spending, and speaking of retail, department store Hemmings

will be reporting on their figures, Macy's reported strong sales figures

because of warm weather in June and July and healthy consumer spending,

and analysts are expecting the same from JCPenney. Also helping will be

the introduction of appliances as a retail category. We are joined by

the UK equities manager. US stock markets doing very well, is there an

element of it being quite quiet? Lighter trading volume? It is people

looking for somewhere to put their money, quiet trading periods do lead

to more volatility and bigger price movements are the up and the

downside. Authorities have proved to be able to ease people's confidence

and the interest rate rises that were spoken about by the Fed, just

not happening. We are talking about fiscal stimulus in Japan and Canada,

and the UK. Possibly in the United States. That has given people

confidence and has pushed down rates elsewhere. Or that stimulus, getting

through the crisis years, which we have seen -- tall that stimulus. It

is supposed to get Mary Smith and Joe blogs into the economy, but it

ends up in the market. Some of this money is ending up back in Wall

Street? People are not able to get much of a return on bonds and the

yields have come down. The same in terms of bank deposits, you are

getting next to nothing, and some places you are being charged for it.

Some of the money is looking for homes. All these distortions can

provide travel further down the line. You are going to take us

through the papers? Still to come, more than 2000 flights cancelled.

We'll be finding out how a computer outage grounded Delta

We'll have our very own Rory Cellan-Jones looking at

You're with Business Live from BBC News.

The first of four strikes by staff at Eurostar began

They're walking out in a dispute over members' work-life balance.

Victoria Fritz is at St Pancras station for us this morning.

What is a worklife balance? Many people at the BBC don't get it. We

have been asking the same question this morning. Good morning to you

both, I hope you are behaving yourself.

There will be eight trains cancelled over the next four days. This is

part of the work life balance for people working on the Eurostar. Only

8% of trains will be affected over the four days. It means the terminal

at the moment will be running pretty smoothly. Eurostar says tickets are

still available on all routes. We have talked about work- life

balance, what is the problem? Members of finding intolerable and

increase in hours. They are not getting the same package as

counterparts in France and Belgium. We want an agreement with a company

and are determined to get one. Members have told us they want to

take industrial action. It has brought matters firmly to the

attention of the company and hope we can start on an agreement we can all

support. We would all like a better work-life balance does is it really

necessary to start now, in the middle of the summer? Absolutely.

The timetables on the row a change in September. We have one window in

which to get the changes we need. -- on the railway. The company will not

focus on this issue unless we take these measures. Hopefully they will

come to their senses and make a straightforward agreement and we can

all get back to normal working patterns. I will let you go. I know

you have that meeting happening in about 15 minutes. It is possible we

might see some of the strike action actually stand down over the next

bidets and also the strikes that are at the moment scheduled for the

August bank holiday as well. -- the next few days. Trains to Paris and

Brussels will be affected over the next few days.

Our top story: There's been more evidence of the slowdown in China.

Latest figures show the world's second biggest economy is making

A quick look at how markets are faring.

We have been talking a lot about the markets. Wall Street had a cracking

day yesterday. What are you doing? I do not have control of the markets.

We cannot show them. The Dow Jones, Nasdaq and SN to be all up at record

highs. They did well, like me! Hundreds of thousands of passengers

faced transport chaos this week after a technical glitch

at Delta Airlines in the US grounded Its chief executive has apologised

for the computer meltdown - saying he knew the company needed

to make technological investments - but that he didn't think it had this

kind of vulnerability. As well as Delta,

Tesla has also been in the technology headlines this

week after one of its cars crashed while in autopilot mode -

this time in China. Rory Cellan-Jones is our

technology correspondent. This airline has 809 aircraft. On

that date, the scheduled flights were almost 3300. Chaos. What has,

since has been far from reassuring. On the day, all they said

immediately was, the computer system has gone down worldwide. Very little

details for that then they said it was due to a power cut at the

Atlanta headquarters. The Atlanta control centre, this vast control

centre. People were asking why they did not have a back-up. IT experts

said, why does a company in this modern age have a single point of

failure? More details coming out about this buyer at the data centre.

They revealed there was a fire at the data centre. -- this fire. It

was revealed it was such a small fire they did not even call out the

fire brigade. It seems, in some ways, putting out the fire may have

caused further problems. Why did they not use traffic Manager? There

is a history here. Organisations which have had technology for a long

time, they have legacy systems. They have invested far more in the past

in technology ban now. They need a second wave of investment. -- van

now. They're all being a bit shy. If you set up a modern business now...

You don't order to run your own service. You hire a big cloud

computing company. There is redundancy. You have a data centre

in Atlanta but maybe another one in Europe to switch to have something

goes wrong. It costs a pretty penny. I do not know how much time we have.

Ad blocking. Some people say, what is this about? This is a huge story

across the internet anyone trying to make money on the internet is

massively reliant on adverts. More more people are using ad blockers to

prevent themselves seeing adverts they find increasingly annoying. The

content companies, the media companies when you rely on money for

that, are fighting back. They have a big ally in Facebook, who up until

now has not said much. It is about on desktop sites. Not on mobiles and

tablets where most people see them because ad blockers are not very

effective on them as yet. But they are effective on the desktop. That

has got lots of media companies really angry. Facebook now has

joined them and acted against them. There is a bit of a war going on.

The biggest ad blocker has already said it has found a way around

Facebook's ad blocking. Facebook has come back and said, we have found a

way around their way around. A bit of a battle. Very briefly, Tesla had

that accident. I do not think there was an accident involved in this

accident in China. The fact it was in China, someone has made a big

complaint. They had an accident when the autopilot system was on. They

admitted their hands were not on or near the wheel. The advice from

Tesla, even when you have it switched on when your hands should

be poised over the wheel. I am sure we will be hearing more about that

story in time. Thank you. In a moment, we'll take a look

through the Business Pages but first here's a quick reminder of how

to get in touch with us. Stay ahead with all the breaking

business news. Keep up to date with the latest details with insides and

analysis from the team of editors around the world. We want to hear

from you as well. Get involved on the BBC live web page. You can find

us on Twitter and Facebook. On TV and online, whenever you need to

know. Let's start with a story about Macy's closing hundreds of its sites

due to competition from online retailers. Martin says, I must

confess to a bit of showroom in. By on the -- look on the high street

and buy online because it is cheaper. I preferred to go to the

shops and look around. I have to be honest, I preferred that as well. A

bit of both. Depends what it is full. Lots of things the children I

buy online and get them delivered and it is very convenient. Things

for me, I like the touch and feel. I like the reviews online of lots of

consumer feedback. You can do both. You can go into a store and have a

look at a book and then go on to Amazon and check the reviews and

then buy it in the book shop. I have done that. If it is quite pricey,

you could have a quick look to see, are they overcharging? People do a

comparison. This is what is happening to the bricks and mortar.

Macy's is a big name, isn't it? They are shutting 100 stores. They have a

portfolio of over 700. Some of the weaker stores where perhaps they are

situated in places where people have fallen out of favour with them. They

will recycle the money to refurbish the rest of the stores and putted

into digital offering, to bulk up that spend the online space. Let's

move on to the story in the Daily Telegraph. Evaluations for big tech

companies like Goober. Is there a dot-com bubble on the horizon? --

Uber. These are privately held companies are not quoted on the

stock market. The reader cross is, technology companies are quoted on

the stock markets. -- be read across. The Nasdaq index is

technology heavy. It is hitting all-time highs. Markets have been

powered by the success of these new technology, New World companies.

That has been mirrored in the private space. These companies can

raise vast amounts of money from private wealth companies, pension

funds. The valuations being put on them are extraordinary. Quite often,

profits at the current time are very small. It is all about grabbing

market share. They are not making those sums of money yet. The

comparisons against some established businesses are very high. Good to

talk to you. Thank you for coming in and talking to us.

Have a great weekend. You have more business out the rest of the day. I

am done. Goodbye.