15/02/2018 BBC Business Live

This is Business Live from BBC

News with Alice Baxter

and Samantha Simmonds.

Jubilation in South Africa

after President Zuma's resignation -

but will the economy follow suit?

Live from London, that's our top

story on Thursday, 15th February.

The country's currency - the rand -

has strengthened in the hopes Mr.

Zuma would step down.

Now all eyes are on his successor.

Also in the programme -

one of India's richest men

is accused of swindling over

a billion dollars

from a state lender.

We'll be in Delhi to find out more.

Asian stocks rose on Thursday

after Wall Street brushed aside

strong US inflation data and surged,

in a move that also saw the dollar

pinned to two-week lows.

A sip in the right direction -

Keep Cup is a reusable coffee

container that is cutting down

on waste and making money

by helping the environment.

We'll find out more.

And Austria is banning

the smoking ban.

So would you avoid places

where smoking is allowed

or are you not that bothered?

Just use the hashtag BBCBizLive.

Hello and welcome to Business Live.

South Africa's beleaguered

President Jacob Zuma has resigned

with immediate effect -

avoiding a no-confidence

vote planned for today.

He faced persistent allegations

of corruption and will now

be formally succeeded

by Cyril Ramaphosa,

the new leader of the ANC.

Markets have reacted positively

to the prospect of a new President.

Since the start of December,

the South African Rand has been

the best performing currency out

of all of the emerging economies-

here you can see the dollar

declining against the strengthening

rand.

It rallied a further 2% on the news

of Mr Zuma's resignation.

Many suggest Mr Zuma

was not committed to

serious economic reforms.

GDP growth has slowed over

the course of his tenure.

Unemployment has risen steadily over

the last few years and could remain

stubbornly high until the turn

of the decade.

Let's hear the moment

when President Zuma announced

he is stepping down.

I have therefore come to the

decision to resign as President of

the republic with immediate effect.

decision to resign as President of

the republic with immediate effect.

Everyone though I disagree with the

decision of the leadership, of my

organisation, I have always been a

disciplined member of the ANC. As I

leave, I will continue to serve the

people the people of.

people the people of.

Lerato Mbele, our Africa business

correspondent is in Johannesburg.

Welcome to you. So he is out, we are

going to expect to have a new

President today, with Cyril

Ramaphosa sworn in possibly within a

few hours' time. Top of his list is

going to be sorting out the economy,

isn't it. What has he got to do

first, do you think?

Well, after he

is sworn in, it is about five days

before the South African budgets for

the New Year is tabled, and many

people are saying, that is really

the event to watch, because as you

know, yesterday South Africa got its

latest unemployment figures, they

are still very very high, at 26%.

That is a fifth or a quarter of the

population rather, that cannot find

job, and some of them have simply

just stopped trying. We also are

facing a situation in South Africa

where two of the leading

international credit ratings

agencies have downgraded the

country's sovereign debt to junk

status, the only one who hasn't

taken a stand yet is Moody, and if

the signs aren't promising it is

expected that Moody's will join in

the fray. If that happens we can

expect South Africa to see capital

outflow disinvestment and the

prospects really for growth are

going to look really dire. Growth

coming in at 1.44% is what the

central bank forecasts for 2018.

What is he going to do to attract

back in vestment, do you think?

Well, we know that Cyril Ramaphosa

is not just a shrewd negotiator but

he is a renowned businessman. He is

one of South Africa's richest men,

he has got assets in all sorts of

sectors from mining to retail. Media

and also the food business. So what

people really want is a safe pair of

hands, is what the investment

community are saying, someone who

understands how dealings are done,

how they are negotiated. How policy

serves both the people and the

interests of business, how you

incentivise that investment and

basically they are hoping what he

will do ultimately is just run a

tight and clean ship, because

corruption has really been the

albatross round the Government's

neck over last few years.

Not all of

his policies are entirely business

friendly, are they? They? There are

suggestions he wants to increase or

change the plans on aggressive land

reform policy.

Well, to be fair,

they are not his policies. The

African National Congress is the

party in Government, they deploy a,

into the executive and highest

office of the land. They are not

Cyril Ramaphosa 's policies they are

the policies is of the Government

that has been elected by the people.

What the ANC has said to the South

African is we promise you a radical

economic transformation, an overhaul

of an economy that has led to the

Eigg highest unemployment rate, the

widest inequalities between the rich

and poor, and has really carried

over many of the legacies of

apartheid that has seen a small

minority more privileged than the

rest. Part of this talk about

aggressive land reform radical

transformation, free education,

having wider ownership of strategic

assets in mining, is is really about

creating an ebbing Librium in the

economy. If people see it as a

radical many South Africans see it

as a necessary intervention to

create more equitable society. Is

challenge is how they will do it in

a delicate way that still says to

the business community come and

invest in South Africa and says to

the average South African person we

have your interests at heart.

Good

to see you.

Thank Thank you.

Thank Thank you.

Let's take a look at some of

the other stories making the news.

European plane maker Airbus has

taken another $1.6 billion hit

on its troubled A400M

military transport plane.

That takes charges on the troubled

defence project to over

eight billion Euros so far.

The news overshadowed otherwise

upbeat full-year results.

Net profit increased 35%

to almost $3.6 billion.

Amazon has announced it will create

2,000 permanent contract positions

this year in France -

its largest market in Europe

after Britain and Germany.

The increase will bring Amazon's

total number of French

staff to 7,500 in 2018.

Initial talks have been held

on what could be the tech

sector's biggest ever deal.

Qualcomm has confirmed it met

with Broadcom on Wednesday

to discuss the latter's revised

121 billion dollar bid.

Qualcomm's board will meet in March

to determine the next step

for the telecommunication

equipment-making company

India's second largest bank has

detected a $1.77 billion fraud

coming from a single branch.

And it's thought to involved

billionaire and diamond

merchant Nirav Modi.

Davina, what more do you have on

this?

Well, definitely the day is

not shining bright like a diamond

for Mr Modi here, what investigators

have been able to find out so far,

is that Mr Modi colluded with the

Punjab national bank employees to

get fake bank guarantees, and

because of those other banks were

able to give him loans and it wasn't

before seven years and $1.8 billion

before this fraud has been detected.

And now investigations are under

way, we haven't heard from Mr Modi

so far, we are hoping that there

would be a statement soon, but

already pressure is building,

because the agencies are now

conducting searches across his

offices in India.

Many thanks for that.

Asian shares including

Japan's Nikkei share average rose

significantly on Thursday,

as investors bought back some

recently-battered stocks

after the US markets climbed

overnight, shrugging off

stronger-than-expected

inflation data.

A total of 28 out of 33 sectors

were in positive territory,

with financial stocks and exporters

outperforming, ignoring

the strong yen.

The dollar stretched overnight

losses against the Japanese yen

to touch a 15-month low of 106.42,

having declined more

than 2% so far this week.

Hong Kong stocks -

they posted their third consecutive

day of gains on Thursday,

when trading ended at midday

before a long holiday.

The blue-chip index,

which on Wednesday had its biggest

single-day percentage rise since May

2016, climbed 5.5% this week.The

market is now closed on Thursday

afternoon for the Lunar New Year

holiday - trading will

resume on Tuesday, Feb.

20.

Here in Europe, markets have opened.

And Yogita Limaye has

the details about what's ahead

on Wall Street Today.

Canada ease Bombardier will release

results for the last quarter of 2017

and the full year as well. They come

soon after the plane maker won a

trade dispute against American firm

Boeing. A US trade body has allowed

Bombardier to sell its newest

aircraft in this country without

paying duties and investors will be

watching for the company's forecast

for 2018. A raft of economic data

will be out as well, industrial

production numbers will be released

and we will find out how the

producer price index is faring.

Which is a measure of wholesale

inflation here in the US, it is

likely to have gone up by 2.5% in

January after dipping in December.

That will be in line with what he

saw on Wednesday, when data showed

that consumer prices had risen.

that consumer prices had risen.

Richard Dunbar is Investment

Director at Aberdeen

Standard Investments.

Good morning. We will talk first

about the European growth numbers

out yesterday, with I were pretty

good.

Very strong growth. 2.5% in

the fourth quarter and expectation

in the year ahead. That is a change

from what we were talking about

about 18 Mondays ago when there was

worries about the crisis? The euro

and worries in Ireland, Greece,

Portugal. We have steady growth

fuelled by low interest growths and

quantitative easing. Good investment

and exports so making a fairly

potent cocktail.

Spanning all

different sectors and like you say

countries like Spain, like Italy,

that we were talking about in

worrying terms, suddenly coming out

much better. Germany particularly.

Fastest since 2007.

The peripheral

countries like our London and,

Spain, Portugal. They have taken

some tough medicine, Irish wages

dropped, property prices halved. But

that medicine appears to be working

and we are seeing your real broad

spread growth, albeit some of the

problems we have spoken about are

still there. High unemployment.

Still political turmoil in Germany.

Elections in Italy. So the worries

are still there, but lots of growth

which maybe, certainly more than we

expected.

Let us talk about the US

inflation figure, we were trying to

anticipate what was going to happen

with them and what knock-on effect.

They will not had the impact many

feared they would.

There is a little

more inflation about globally and

particularly in the US than perhaps

expected. That is what investors

have been looking out for. More

inflation means the central banks

are going to be more aware. So more

inflation in the US than expected

but the markets seems to have

ignored that.

We will see you later

Richard.

Still to come.

Still to come.

Can't live without your morning

coffee, but you're worried

about the environmental impact?

We'll have a reusable option

for you in a few minutes.

You're with Business

Live from BBC News.

"Shamelessly bamboozled" -

that's how a parliamentary report

has described members

of the British Steel Workers pension

scheme who were given

unsuitable financial advice,

leading some to lose

out on thousands.

It happened last year

when Tata restructured

the British Steel Workers pension

scheme, meaning its 124,000

members had to decide

what to do with that money.

Thank you for joining us, a very

strongly worded damning report here.

Yes, and rightly so, I think, there

were clearly some system failures

here, the reports highlighted

various things that could have been

done differently to protect the

worker, there was a particular set

of circumstances towards the end of

last year, where they had to make a

fairly complex decision in a short

period of time, their trust in the

pension scheme had been undermined.

They knew which ever of the two

options they were being presented

with, the replacement scheme or

going into the lifeboat fund would

have resulted in some loss of money

for them, in that environment,

unscrupulous advisers started

knocking on their doors and offering

them a third option, which would

have involved transferring their

money out of the pension schemes all

together, into an individual pension

and in the process, giving up the

valuable guarantees they built up in

the original final salary scheme.

Some scheme members chose to take

that option, a couple of thousand of

them, the transfer values were

hundreds of thousands of pounds, but

the fees the adviser were taking

were clearly not appropriate for the

circumstances, and so now, some of

these steelworkers have found

themselves out of possibility.

The pensions

themselves out of possibility.

The pensions regulator

themselves out of possibility.

The pensions regulator said

themselves out of possibility.

The pensions regulator said it

themselves out of possibility.

The pensions regulator said it would

themselves out of possibility.

The pensions regulator said it would

try to protect savers, not doing a

great job so far, what are they

going to do?

They will look up what

they could have done differently

because the situation will come up

again in a different guise, the

Financial Conduct Authority is

acknowledging there are things they

could have done differently to

tighten up on advice, and for the

scheme members, this is a question

of whether they can get compensation

for bad advice.

Thank you, head of

policy at Hargreaves Lansdown.

Standard Life Aberdeen loses a

Lloyd's contract, asset management

contract, more on that later.

You're watching Business Live.

Our top story...

South Africa's

President Jacob Zuma has resigned

leaving Cyril Ramaphosa

as the acting president.

He's likely to be sworn in later

on Thursday or on Friday.

A quick look at how

markets are faring.

The European markets all opening in

positive territory so far today.

Many of us can't start

the day without one.

Our morning cup of coffee has

become a daily ritual,

so much so that coffee is actually

the most popular drink worldwide.

I actually do not drink coffee, I

drink tea.

Around 2 billion cups of coffee

are consumed every day according

to the British Coffee Association.

But our addiction to that cup of Joe

is having an adverse

affect on the environment.

While the average coffee cup

is technically recyclable,

they are lined with polyethylene

plastic on the inside.

That means they need to be recycled

in specialised centres.

And that means hardly any cups

actually get recycled.

Every year in the UK, we throw away

approximately 2.5 billion

so-called disposable cups.

So, how can we avoid

them becoming landfill?

One company making

reusable cups is KeepCup

and the general manager,

Chris Baker, is here.

Good morning. Wonderful to see you.

You joined KeepCup last year but the

company launched this product in

2009, a brother and sister team, why

did they decide there was a need for

this new kind of cop?

The product

was launched in 2009 by Abigail and

Jamie in Melbourne. What they wanted

essentially was, they were running a

cafe chain, and they saw first-hand

the amount of disposable cups they

were throwing away in Melbourne and

they wanted something to replicate

the form and function that was

reusable and that is where the

KeepCup came in. They realised it

was a solution to a global problem,

over 2.5 billion cups thrown away in

the UK every year, as you said, the

impact is massive.

The first

incarnation they came up with. Us

through this.

This product is 12

ounce cup and this is the original

product we came up with and it

replicates the form and function of

disposable cup. Heat resistible

band, a hard lid, and we have

developed a range of which

essentially work for the different

ways consumers drink coffee.

These

are the only barista approved cups,

aesthetically pleasing, and they

serve the purpose.

They replicate

the sizes on the form of the cups

under the brew head, they work for

the consumer and the person serving

the coffee and that is essential to

make the speed of service in the

coffee shop work and keep everything

flowing well.

It seems to be

something we are being slow to catch

up on in this country, amazing that

was started in Australia, massive

uptake of the product there, but

here it has taken until the last

year for people to get onto the idea

that coffee cups most of us purchase

wherever we go to get coffee, they

are not recyclable. We thought they

were because they look like they are

made of paper, but there is plastic

in them. What kind of reaction have

you had around the world to these?

Awareness is critical. We have been

doing this ten years, once you make

consumers aware of the issue, they

want to make a positive change.

Paper cups are not recyclable

because of the plastic layer. Then

it is about getting it into daily

habits. We have sold another 10

million cups. In that time, those

users would have diverted 5 billion

cups going to landfill, but in the

same time, 5 trillion cups would

have still been discarded around the

world.

Your background is in the

recycling industry and appoint you

have made before this is a stretched

industry. The news that recyclable

coffee cups were not totally

recyclable came as a surprise to

many in January and it also came at

the same time as talk of the

so-called punitive measure of

charging people, to what degree has

that affected take up?

The mention

of a potential levy has meant that

sales have doubled in the last

month, chains are offering a

discount if you offer a reusable

cup, but consumers respond more to a

fine. At KeepCup, we think a small

fine can be a reminder of the

unnecessary waste and it can lead to

more positive choices.

You can save

up to 50p on the coffee?

In some

chains like Pret, you get 50p.

Habits are hard to break. To

remember to take one with you when

you leave the house and carry it

around in your bag with you and wash

it up in the evening, some are

plastic, this is glass, it is a

mindset you have to change as well?

It is, but you would be amazed how

quickly it becomes part of the

routine. I have a pocket in my bag

it lives them.

And they do not leak,

importantly.

They do not leak, it

has a sealed inside.

Great to see

you, thank you very much for taking

us through the journey. Many, many

thanks.

In a moment, we'll take a look

through the business pages.

But first, here's a quick reminder

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Stay up-to-date with the business

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to know, when you need to know it.

Richard is back to take a look

through the papers. Instead of

happiness reports we sometimes see,

you have a really jolly story, the

world's most miserable economies.

Bloomberg are kindly measuring the

world's most miserable economy is

based on mainly inflation and

unemployment, the most miserable of

Venezuela, South Africa and Egypt,

not surprising, Venezuela's

inflation is at 13,000%, South

Africa's unemployment rate is over

30%, rather miserable areas of the

world to live in, in essence, I

think it is a poor governance index,

people in South Africa have been

poorly led and let down and it

results in inflation and

unemployment.

Countries like Mexico,

that has done really well to improve

its ranking on the index, we were

talking earlier with regards to the

US about the focus globally now on

rising synchronised inflation and

that again is something that is

pointed out here, the way they are

measuring misery is by rising costs

in a country.

Ronald Reagan

described inflation as a silent

thief and that is what we have seen

in some of the countries at the top

of the misery index, savings and

spending power stolen from the

population and that is why they rise

to the top of the index

unfortunately.

Thailand has claimed

the least miserable status but

question marks about how they

measure.

Virtually no unemployment,

but I suspect there is quite a lot

of underemployment, but they look

pretty happy.

We also spotted this

other story on the BBC website about

Austria planning to ban the ban on

smoking and at the beginning of the

show, we asked viewers to ask what

they think about that, would they

avoid places where it is not banned,

we had some responses. One says, I

would not, but I would burn places

were loud and obnoxious people are

allowed. Sophie, personal choice

will stop -- I would ban places were

loud and obnoxious people are

allowed.

Would you avoid a place? I

think it has been popular here, and

even where you would least expect

it, like France, it has been pretty

popular, and I'm surprised Austria

is moving in this direction and I

suspect it will not be as popular as

they think.

The knock-on effect for

things like pubs has been tremendous

because people cannot smoke in them,

more anecdotal leaver actually a

causal link...

I suspect it is a

causal link and pub loan owners have

been that losers Asha Crow pub

owners have been the losers. -- pub

owners have been the losers.

Thank

you very much for coming in.

That's it from Business Live today.

There will be more business news

throughout the day on the BBC Live

webpage and on World Business

Report.

We'll see you again tomorrow.