03/05/2012 World Business Report

BBC World News. And now, a meeting of the ECB in Barcelona, and

Samsung watches a bread be productive in London. -- a brand

new product. Hello, and a warm welcome. You are

with World Business Report. The headlines: Pressure mounts on the

European Central Bank as the number of eurozone jobless hits a record

high. Out Of This World, Samsung unveils

its 3G smartphone galaxy, but how will it fare in a highly

competitive market? And the US Treasury Secretary calls

for China to alter its growth policies and listen currency

controls. Good to have you with us. Spanish

police have been erecting barricades ahead of expected

protests in Barcelona. ECB officials are in town for that by

annual meeting outside of Frankfurt. Spain, in particular, is feeling

aggrieved by the ECB's refusal to intervene in the money markets to

bring down the government's cost of borrowing. There is growing

pressure for the ECB to restart its bond buying programme, effectively

lending to countries such as Spain at lower interest rates than those

offered by wary investors. I understand the ECB is not going to

offer much to the Spanish people today? No, I think the ECB will try

to keep everything unchanged. No rate cuts, no new operations. We

see that the ECB is simply reaching its limits. In terms of the bond

buying programme, there is a lot of pressure on it from Spain in

particular, Spanish politicians talk about it a lot. Tell us how

the ECB makes its choices as to when and why it might buy Spanish

or other bonds for that matter? you look back at the last two years,

when they did it, it has always when the tension was very high on

bond markets. That was when the ECB decided to intervene. They thought

interest rates were simply too high, were unjustified, and they

intervened. But the thing is, it did not work for a long time. It

only had a short-term impact on markets, because after two or three

days, investors realise there were still debt problems in Greece,

Portugal or, right now, in Spain. So, as you say, the impact of it is

very short-lived, but the LTE are road, the cheap loans for banks

issued by the ECB, that did seem to have a better impact, as you say,

people are looking for a third round of that - will they give an

indication today that that might be on the agenda? I think they will

open the door again, because it is a way to encourage him direct Bond

purchasing, and a much easier way for the ECB to do it. It is also

much easier to sell to the German Central Bank, so again, providing

cheap liquidity for the banks which could then in turn by Spanish or

Italian bonds. It is not the time right now, but I think they will

open the door again. What is your take on the risks of this way of

increasing liquidity? Because many people argue that actually, the

risks are too high, and given the uptake last time in February, what

was it, one to have in euros or something? -- one trillion euros.

Yes, they raise the risk for the ECB, which takes more risk on its

books, and there is also the risk that if a lot of liquidity comes

into the economy we will see inflation. But right now, I think

this risk is very small, because inflation is probably the sports

concerned we should have in a situation with the eurozone economy.

It is in a recession. The risks are there but they are limited risk.

Thank you for your perspective. The ECB is expected to keep interest

rates in the eurozone at 1%. Society Gerard is reporting

earnings sure be. The French bank is expected to say its profits fell

in the first three months of the year. Fears about the debt crisis

in the euro area have dented trading in shares and bonds,

reducing earnings. They have also hammered the group's share price.

Nonetheless, the bank is forecast to have earned about $1 billion at

the start of this year. Another fall in profits is likely

at metro, the world's fourth- biggest retailer, which is a victim

of the downturn across Europe. Shoppers are cutting back on all

but essential purpose -- purchasers as the number of people out of work

its record highs across eurozone. Even in the company's home country,

Germany, where the economy remains relatively strong, the number of

unemployed is rising. US Treasury Secretary Timothy

Geithner has again called on China to raise the value of its currency

against the dollar. There is a lot of contentious issues being tackled

with this visit, tell us about this one. Indeed, many contentious

issues, and this one, of course, is the usual refrain.

Timothy Geithner said this at the 4th annual round of the Strategic

economic dialogue, which just began today, and, of course, he is also

calling on China to change essentially its export-led growth

policy and focus more on domestic consumption. He said that of course

that shift was very necessary to sustain China's economic growth in

the future. China may be the world's second largest economy, but

it relies heavily on exports for growth, and a slowdown in key

markets such as the US and Europe is raising a lot of fears about its

growth prospects. The US is always searching the Chinese to further

appreciate their currency, even though China has loosened its

currency peg and allowed it to rise nearly 8% against the dollar in the

past two years. US policy makers argue that it is still undervalued.

Of course, over the years they have often accused Beijing of keeping

the value of the currency artificially low to try to help its

exporters, saying that such a move, of course, gives Chinese businesses

an unfair advantage. It hurts American firms and the American

economy as well. China, in its defence, said that a sudden

appreciation of the yard will not only hurt its exporters but will

also have an impact on its overall economy. -- appreciation of the

yuan. We will keep an eye on that visit.

Now, new figures show that Samsung has shipped to an industry record

of 42 million smartphones this year alone, a whopping rise of 267 % on

last year. In fact, a recent report suggests that Samsung, already the

world's biggest mobile phone maker, is about to overtake apple as the

world's largest smartphone sell-off. -- cellar.

The market for smartphones has exploded in the last year. Samsung

posted a record profit in the first quarter of 20 12th, which pushed

the company passed gnocchi as the world's leading mobile company. One

of the company's reading success stories was the series of

smartphones, which almost as stripped apple's iPhone.

Launched here at Earls Court in London, the new Samsung Galaxy is

set to be the official handset of the London 2012 Olympics. Sam

sonship 20,000 galaxy handsets every award for the first three

months of the deer, giving it a market share of 30.6 %. Apple,

however, have a slightly less impressive 24.1 % of the market.

With smartphones taking on more characteristics of computers, it is

not so much the comparison of individual handsets that will mark

out the winners and losers, but what they actually offer. The

industry has already defined what the handset looks but consumers

need to be inspired by the services they can use. Services like the

drop box and the cloud. We are not really seem much evolution in the

design of handsets, because we have pretty much got there. It is a big

screen, it has a better camera on the back. Now, really, the

innovation, and this is what we are expecting to see from Sampson this

week, is what people offer in the cloud - the services, the software,

the support for the handset. Samsung is positioned to expand

quickly in a number of new segments, due to the sheer volume of the

devices it manufactures. The company's huge amount of cash is

also about it to research and develop new technologies quicker

than his rivals. It is, perhaps, the only company that can now give

Apple a run for its money. Now, the markets today are being

tracked down by the news at of the US yesterday, and also from Germany

and eurozone economies, that the number of people out of work is

growing. For the US, it was that the number of people back in work