20/11/2012 World Business Report

controversial issues within the Anglican community.

Now it is time to all the latest financial news with Sally.

A very warm welcome. Here are the headlines: Restructuring great debt.

Eurozone finance ministers and the IMF try and resolve their

differences and find a way to make Greece's debt mountain more

manageable. And directing foreign investment

falling due to slowing global economies.

And the tech giant struggling with the decline of the PC era. Hewlett

Packard and how it is dealing with the face of competition from smart

friends. -- smart phones. How to make Greece's debt

manageable, that'll be the question facing eurozone finance ministers

and Christine Lagarde as they meet today to try and settle their

differences. That agreement eluded them last week. Greece, meanwhile,

is waiting for its next amount of aid. The argument is between the

lenders, the IMF says its debts are now too large to meet its target.

Germany is resisting any deal that would look like a fretted bailout.

It later suggestion will hit private bondholders to Gen. --

again. The credit ratings agency Moody's has downgraded France from

its top rating. The country's debt has been reduced and Moody's has

kept its negative outlook. Each has loomed the risk of a quick exit. --

it has blamed. To put all this in perspective, I am joined by a

European economist. Let us talk about this issue with a great debt.

Eurozone finance ministers and the IMF discussing ways of sorting that

out. What is different is that this time Greece has actually delivered

what was required of them. Greece has done its part. It has continued

with the aid for priests. Europeans do not want to cut Greece's debt.

They do not want to forgo the money they have led. They think that

Greece needs to deserve such a cut. The IMF thinks that Greece needs

confidence that the country is sustainable. The problem should be

sold now. That means there is a compromise. We will see if they can

strike it today. It is between the lenders and not about Greece itself.

In terms of finding that compromise, it is important that they do it

quickly. If Greece's that are not seen as sustainable, it could cause

problems for investors. It would be most beneficial for Greece and the

financial markets. It would take the pressure off Greece for a long

period of time. It would make the country look better. The European

solution just stops the whole letters opened up. -- that house.

This problem will resurface very soon. It will also keep the

pressure on Greece to reform itself. Let us talk about the downgrade to

France. That is significant. They were downgraded by Standard and

Poor's in January. It is significant for France. In January,

it was several countries. This one is just France. It comes just after

the Economist published a legal paper saying that France was in

trouble. Many would agree that France has not done what is

required to make the country more competitive, to bring the borrowing

of the government to sustainable levels. The government has done

something. They have lower labour costs. That will improve

competitiveness. Before they did that, all of the measures went in

the wrong direction. Especially the labour market. This really targets

France. But it hurts Europe as well. The rescue fund borrows on France's

ratings. Very good perspective. Thank you for talking us through

all those issues. We will be watching those meetings going on

between finance ministers and the IMF. We will keep you up-to-date.

One of the biggest names in Silicon Valley, Hewlett-Packard, reports

their earnings today. They will be expected to provide further

evidence the PC era is in decline. PC sales are in trouble. Big

trouble. Worldwide shipments fell over 8%. The sharpest decline since

2001. That is hurting Hewlett- Packard. The country that has won

the title of the world's number one PC maker. Now it is stuck with the

business that is in decline. The problem is that consumer habits

have changed. When it comes to keeping up with friends, surfing

the internet, playing games, more of us are using smart phones and

tablet computers. Weak results from rivals showed that the economy is

not helping either. People are getting frugal. The error in the

spending what they have to. -- they are only spending. They could

upgrade their equipment. But they're not. The company is hoping

on its New see an actor in two years to be its saviour. She has

already cut thousands of jobs and shook up the structure. But it is

taking longer then investors would like. The share price has fallen

more than 40%. The decline in the PC, the decline in printing, those

things are out of control. Unfortunately for shareholders,

there are big changes. For those hoping for an improvement in the

company's earnings, they may have more bad news.

Foreign direct investment into China fell by almost 2.5% in the

first ten months of this year. That is the longest run of decline in

three years. To make sensible of this, we're going live to Singapore.

Nice to see you. Why is this significant for China? That is

because even though the government has been trying to balance its

economic risk by trying to boost domestic consumption, the economy

there remains rather vulnerable to external factors. We always talk

about exports from China being very crucial to China's economic growth.

They still live. But for the factories in China, investment by

foreign companies are still very important. This was more evidence

of a slowing global economy. That meant that companies have not been

spending as much money in China as they used to. Take Europe for

example. Investments fell 5% for the first ten months. It was not

just Europe. Investments from Asia almost fell 5%. Investment from the

US actually rose. China is still on course to attract more than $100

billion in direct foreign investment this year. That is Laura

compared to last year's figure. But that was a record amount. It is

still attracting enough foreign direct investment. It seems that

the pace has been slowing down. There was more evidence today about

the impact of the fractured relationship between Japan and

China. That is right. There was a massive drop in investment from

Japan into China. It fell with and 32%. In September, Japan's

investment was up 25%. Those territorial disputes are affecting

investment. This was shortly after this very violent anti- Japan

protests resulting in Japanese companies having to hold their

operations in China. We are now seeing the investments moving to

other parts of Asia. Time to show you the markets in

Asia briefly. All of these markets are slightly higher. It is off the

back of the news out of the State yesterday. Sales of homes in the