07/09/2016 BBC Business Live

This is Business Live from BBC News with Ben Thompson and Sally Bundock.

London retains its top spot as the best place

in the world to do business, but New York slumps to sixth place.

Live from London, that's our top story on Wednesday, 7th September.

Holding onto their crown a post-Brexit world.

London takes the top spot as the world's best city,

but how much longer can it expect to be top dog?

Also in the programme - the wonder Down Under.

The Australian economy has now been growing continuously for 25 years.

The European trading day has been going for half an hour. The price of

oil is up by over 1%. We will talk you through the winners and the

losers. Voyage SNCF sells tens of millions

of train tickets across the region. And we speak to the head

of a business that has been keeping Europe's tourism industry on track

during a turbulent year. Voyage SNCF sells tens of millions

of train tickets across the region. Their boss will be

with us a little later. And, as Apple prepare

to unveil its new devices, rumours are rife that it's ditching

the headphone jack on its iPhone. So we want to know -

good move or bad? Where's the best

place to do business? It's a question every major boss

faces as they look to expand The financial services giant PwC has

today published its list of the top spots around the world to live,

work and do business. Well, for the second time in a row,

London has taken the crown as a result of its strong

intellectual capital, sense of innovation

and technological readiness. That will, of course, reassure many

in the city, as the UK looks It's not all good news

for the UK capital though, as the report also warns that Brexit

could affect the movement of talent into the city as well as London's

ability to encourage So watch this space as far as London

is concerned. The city-state Singapore

takes the second spot, and was particularly praised

for its transportation systems, infrastructure

and the ease of doing business. The big faller in the list

is New York which has gone from first place in 2012

to sixth place now. The city performed poorly

on sustainability and cost, but still comes second

when measuring economic clout. He's a partner at

PricewaterhouseCoopers. David good morning. Welcome. Talk us

through some of this because what struck me is there are so many

things that you look at when you're assessing which cities are in the

league table and it is some unusual things, things we might not take

into account? Yeah, I mean the things that you would expect like

economic clout, ease of doing business, transportation, but we

wanted to cover a broader range of measures which include things like

you know cultural vibrancy, preparedness for natural disasters.

You know, all the sorts of things that affect living and working in a

city. We're looking here at pictures of London that's retained the top

spot. Tell me what London is doing right. It scores really highly on

things you might expect, economic clout, the number of global

headquarters that are located in London. Ease of doing business. The

ease of which you can set-up a business, recruit people, employ

people, and those sorts of things it scores really well. It scores things

well with cultural vibrancy. There is a tremendous history to the city.

London holding on to the top spot, but a lot of other cities snapping

at its heels particularly in the wake of Brexit perhaps trying to

steal a lead on financial services, but there is no evidence that's

happening yet? The survey was done prior to Brexit, but if you were to

do it now, there would no change so far. Four of the top ten are

European cities. And changes ahead with Brexit. It is too early to say

what. But I think the thing for me is London is proven to be a very

adaptable city. It is a very agile city. One we expect to be high is

New York, falling into sixth place. So I suppose the reverse is true.

You've touched on what London is doing well. What's New York not

doing well? It suffers from cost of living issues. There is a lot of

competition within this across the broader measures and whilst New York

continues to score well with traditional things, it doesn't do

well with cost of living and sustainability, those things. I

suppose ultimately, businesses that are looking around the world and

where to locate will be weighing up the things you've talked about. What

can cities do to try and attract more business? They need to consider

the broader measures and not focus on the financials. People want to

experience good living within a city and I think it is important that

cities look across all the sorts of broad measures we cover in this

report. David, thank you. In other news, Australia's Trade

Minister says it will be at least 2.5 years before his country can

arrange a new trade He said Australia would negotiate

with the EU before starting formal talks with Britain,

and they could begin only once Swiss Banking Group,

UBS, says up to 1,500 of its jobs in London may

be moved abroad once the UK leaves The bank has previously said that

a "significant percentage" of its London workforce would be

moved if Brexit became a reality. The bank employs around 5,000 staff

at its offices in London. French car-maker, Renault, may stop

offering diesel engines in most The move is a reaction

to the cost of ensuring that diesel engines comply

with tighter emissions regulations. Last year saw a huge diesel

emissions scandal involving German Renault's move was reported

by Reuters and has not yet been The Business Live page dominated by

one story. It is Sports Direct. It is under fire for its treatment of

its staff. Some conditions have been described as a Victorian workhouse

because they weren't paying staff according to more traditional

contracts, it is their annual general meeting today. The boss is

expected to come under fire. Lots of details about what might happen. The

chairman offering his resignation but it was not accepted by the board

of directors at Sports Director, Mike Ashley is the controversial

figure that's been in the papers a lot, Mike Ashley. He told the BBC he

plans to keep the company publicly listed. So lots of different bits of

information coming in ahead of that AGM that's later on today. Yesterday

they said they would offer their retail staff, those in stores, fixed

hours contracts rather than the zero-hours contracts. So perhaps

pre-empting the criticism that they are likely to face later.

Australia has managed 25 years of continuous GDP growth.

That's despite the slowdown in China.

Phil explain this. 25 years of consecutive growth. It is a good

figure to have, how have they done it? Well, it is a great result, 3.3%

Australia's annual GDP growth, that's more than double the United

States managed to garner during that period. And to explain this, you

have to look at Australia's response to a fading mining boom. For the

last decade-and-a-half, Australia has relied on exports of natural

resources, most notably iron ore and coal to places such as China and

India for its economic growth. That natural resource is fading and when

you drill into the latest GDP figures this shows that Government

investment and spending on infrastructure projects such as

roads and other transport links are really propping up the economy. They

economists are saying in Australia economists are saying in Australia

that without that public spending Australia's growth would be a lot

weaker. So ministers in Australia say these are very, very good

results, but they do acknowledge that there are challenges ahead. You

have to remember too that interest rates in Australia are at a record

low. So that shows that the reserve bank wants to inject more money into

the economy because it has worries about certain sectors of Australia's

economic performance. So the headline result is very, very good

for Australia. No recession since for Australia. No recession since

the early 1990s and of course, the Australian Government is crossing

its fingers that this miraculous economic run continues. All right,

we'll watch this space. For now, Phil, thank you very much indeed.

Phil Mercer. The Australian dollar weakening today. That's after a

five-day run of a 2.4% gain. A weakening in the Australian dollar

in reaction to that growth number that came through.

Japan, its five day of run of gains came to a halt today. The Bank of

Japan is not going to be initiating more stimulus measures there in the

near future. That hit sentiment in Japan. Across Asia we saw slight

falls, that's the night before in the United States. Let's look at

what's going on in the UK. Among the events happening today, we have got

slight losses on markets in Europe. Nothing too dramatic, but Mark

Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, will be before committee

later. That will be interesting. He will be getting a grilling about the

Bank of England's recent action post the Brexit referendum. So a lot to

go on in Europe. We will talk about that in detail.

Here's Samira with what to watch on Wall Street today.

It's holding its annual media event in San Francisco,

where it's expected to unveil the new iPhone7.

Now, these days the big challenge for Apple is to bring some growth

The economic slowdown has pretty much slammed the brakes

on what was once seen as Apple's next big market.

Separately, PlayStation will be holding its own

Now, think of the PlayStation as Sony's most important

The Japanese company will likely be announcing

a higher-end PlayStation 4, better equipped to handle VR,

And it is also expected to show a slimmer, less expensive version

of the PS4 that people have in their living rooms right now.

Richard Hunter, head of research at Wilson King Investment Management.

Richard nice to see you. As Sally touched on in the markets, it is all

about central banks? Yes, apart from what we heard about with Japan, we

have the ECB meeting later in the week as well and perhaps more

pertinently in terms of the Bank of England, there is Mark Carney's

potential grilling this afternoon as well. Is there an issue with Mark

Carney? There is a lot of economic data that suggests that things are

better than they might have forecast, he is perhaps willing some

bad data to come through, they have cut interest rates and they have

launched a stimulus, they may have launched a stimulus, they may have

done that too soon? It is a good point. The excuse after Brexit is we

have only had two weeks worth of data so they left it a month. Even

then we have only had six weeks worth of data and the subsequent

economic numbers that have come through, you could probably make an

argument that there wasn't a need for an interest rate cut for further

monetary easing as we saw. On the other hand, I suspect the reply from

the bank will simply be that one of the central banks duties is to be

ahead of the curve and to anticipate what we're coming into as opposed to

what we might see. Richard, thank you. Nice to see you.

The inside track on keeping things on track!

The boss of French rail giant Voyages SNCF will be

here to tell us how me navigates not one train network,

but lots of them, right across Europe.

You're with Business Live from BBC News.

Sports Direct is in the spotlight again today at their

Annual General Meeting, when bosses are expected

to come under fire over how it treats its workers.

It pre-empted the criticism yesterday, announcing that it

would offer store staff fixed-hour contracts rather than the

So what are we expecting from today's AGM?

Theo Leggett is in our Business Newsroom.

Talk us through what we are expecting today and we've had some

movement? Let me take you to the share price of Sports Direct. This

is between yesterday's close and where the share price is today.

Steep fall this morning. More than 7%. Now the reason for that is that

Sports Direct has said that its earnings next year are likely to be

around the ?300 million mark as opposed to ?380 million which the

markets were expecting and which is the figure we have seen for

2015/2016. That's something else that Mike Ashley and his fellow

directors will be grilled about at the meeting later on today. But it

is about more than just the profit forecast. It is also about corporate

governance. A number of institutional shareholders are

unhappy with what has been going on at Sports Direct. There has been a

major scandal over conditions at its warehouse in Derbyshire. 4,000

people work there. There have been allegations of bullying, allegations

of abuse in the way that the six strikes and you're out system is

used for discipline so if people spent too long going to the toilet

or took too many water breaks, they could be fired. Yesterday, we had a

report from Sports Direct admitting to serious shortcomings in the way

it treated its staff. Mike Ashley has said that's unsuitable and there

have been promises that things will get better. Workers at the company's

stores will be able to opt-out of zero-hours contracts and gain

guaranteed 12 hours minimum hours a work. That said there will be a lot

of pressure from shareholders at meeting today and a lot of that is

likely to fall on the head of the chairman. There will be a vote to

try to oust himment Thank you.

We will keep you across that. You can refer to our page, which is

across the story. The AGM gets under way, and it will update all the

time. Check it out online.

London has been crowned as the world's top city

of opportunity for the second year in a row, but faces major

challenges from the Brexit vote, according to a a report by financial

Singapore and Toronto make up the rest of the top three,

while New York slips from second place to sixth.

We should do a survey among the BBC correspondents. We know who is

where, but what they think! A quick look at how

markets are faring. Europe is quite mixed, very flat, to

be honest. The price of oil is up again.

Keep your comments in about what Apple might announce this week. We

will talk about it later. Running a railway is

notoriously difficult. Not least here in the UK,

where train services are heavily subsidised,

but still criticised for late running, overcrowding

and expensive tickets. So imagine trying to run a business

that brings together lots of train Voyages SNCF is a subsidiary

of the French national railway firm SNCF, and sells railway tickets

to destinations all over Europe. It is a key player in the tourism

industry, employing up to 1,000 Last year, the group sold 83 million

tickets from around 15 European rail operators, with revenues of more

than four billion euros. And now, new technology means that

passengers can change their journey, adapting to delays and changes

across different countries To make it clear, you have brought

in this beautiful train to illustrate what we are talking

about, but your company is just about ticketing, so when it comes to

the trains, how they operate, but they are on time or not, that is not

to do with you. , business is the digital selling of rail, we are the

leader in Europe in selling rail on the web. I should talk about mobile

and tablets, since this business is shifting that way, have to buy it at

which Price, 60% purchase on smartphones. My business is to have

these beautiful trains, it is growing fast, since it is much

easier, with these new tools. Talk us through the logistics. Even in

one country, such as the UK, it means the different companies have

to speak to each other to share the cost and to take a train from, say,

London to Scotland, you might have to use different operators, so how

do you get everybody talking to each other? We need to bundle the

different operators' tickets to show the easiest way to go. As a

distributor, we are the ones making the travel easy. You don't need to

see which company you will take, you just need to say, I want to go from

there to there. I want to get it easy, the cheap price, and we will

sell it to you, to make you happy. We are the happy travel factory,

this is what we succeed in doing. We sell a million tickets each year in

the UK, 80 million tickets are around the world, and we are present

in more than 100 countries, through technology, through the knowledge of

the customer, and through the knowledge of why a customer will

take this train. For leisure, for the purpose of discovering new

landscapes, new cultures. How has your business been affected by what

has been going on in France? The majority of your business is there,

people passing through into the rest of Europe, or just around France.

With all of the offence going on, Euro 2016, lots of terrorist

attacks, that have hit key areas that are very popular with tourists,

those travelling by train, talk us through that. We had two different

events, the positive one, the European Championships, was a great

success. For each match we had sold 20% of the capacity of the stadium

through our system, so that is great. After, there were sad events.

But overall, we have to cope with that and show what the situation is

in France. We lodged a campaign where we can see tourists in Paris

visiting and living a good experience. Did you see a fall in

sales? There was a small fall since the attacks, but when we showed how

the situation is, people understand that and they are keen on travelling

again with us. It is nice to see you, thank you for coming in, and

thank you for bringing the train we play with it later!

The business life page is where you can stay ahead, with all of the

day's breaking news. We will keep you up-to-date with the latest

details, with insight and analysis from the BBC's team of editors

around the world. We want to hear from you. It involved on the web

page. We are on Twitter, and you can find us on Facebook. On TV and

online, whenever you need to know. Do get in touch. You have got in

touch about Apple's new iPhone this week, rumours suggest they will lose

the headphones jack. Let's get to some of the tweets. Then says, if it

makes the phone better, I am for it. Somebody is says, I love the

headphones I have, the Apple I is rubbish in comparison. There is a

suggestion you might have to purchase different headphones. There

was says, nothing wrong with the humble jack plug, just a chance to

corner the market again. It is not good for musicians either. Maria

says, it might make me leave Apple. Richard, do you care? I imagine a

lot of people don't. I have not got an iPhone. They have got a bit of

previous on things like this. In terms of changing the hardware to

the cost of the consumer. I suspect there will be a bit of feedback and

social media. People have been talking about this for months, the

fact that the jack will be changed. For those who have bought fancy

headphones, it is a nightmare. It would mean the phone can be

thinner and they can put in a better battery. That is what people moan

about. So it is a trade-off. What if you have a wireless headset, you

will not be affected. Amazon's new 30 hour working week, they say it is

a great idea. They are trying to improve productivity. One of the

week economic feeds in the state is not so much an implement, it is

productivity, so you will get a 30 hour working week and 75% of your

salary, and certain pockets of the workforce... You are just going

part-time. It is not a new idea. It should also free up the ability to

bring more people in. You are a Londoner, we can tell by your

accent, the top spot, according to the PWC. The surprising thing was

New York going down to sixth place. Thank you for your company, we will

see you soon, goodbye.