:00:04. > :00:14.Benghazi. Those are the latest headlines.
:00:14. > :00:22.
:00:22. > :00:27.Now it is for the latest financial news.
:00:27. > :00:32.Plugging into the electric car market. BMW launches the i3,
:00:32. > :00:37.complete with what it calls its revolutionary ownership model. It
:00:37. > :00:42.will eat charge enthusiasm among the carbuying public?
:00:42. > :00:46.Signing on the dotted line. We'll regulators balked at the $35 billion
:00:46. > :00:55.merger between Publicis and Omnicom, that creates the world's largest ad
:00:55. > :01:00.agency. A very warm welcome. You are with
:01:00. > :01:04.World Business Report. Also in the programme: China is to start a
:01:04. > :01:08.nationwide audit of government debt this week.
:01:08. > :01:13.Electric cars have been around for more than 100 years, but have failed
:01:13. > :01:20.to catch on in a big way. At BMW is saying that it plans to change that,
:01:20. > :01:24.with the introduction of the i3, its first fully electric car. It is made
:01:24. > :01:29.entirely from carbon fibre reinforced plastic . It will also be
:01:29. > :01:33.offered with a new ownership model. It will be a bit like the deals with
:01:33. > :01:37.a mobile phone, where a monthly fee will cover rental of the car,
:01:37. > :01:40.charging costs and servicing, as well as upgrades to bigger vehicles
:01:40. > :01:47.if you need to, for the longer trips.
:01:47. > :01:55.I am joined by Ian Robertson, global head of sales and marketing at BMW.
:01:55. > :02:01.Tell us how much this car is going to cost. In the UK, it is just under
:02:01. > :02:08.30,000. With government support, it is just under 26,000. It will be
:02:08. > :02:16.�369 per month. It covers the cost of the car, the charging of the car,
:02:16. > :02:19.the rental of the car, just be a bit more specific wish to mark you will
:02:19. > :02:24.charge from your charge points at home, but we can also provide you
:02:24. > :02:27.with that and include that within your lease fee. You can have the
:02:27. > :02:36.flexibility of that. You can have a different guy if he wanted to travel
:02:36. > :02:42.a longer distance, such as on holiday. -- a different car.
:02:42. > :02:47.does the charging points work at the users and work? What we wanted to do
:02:47. > :02:52.is to overcome people's anxieties. The offering of a charge points,
:02:52. > :02:56.which could be faster, for example, the offer of putting in
:02:56. > :03:01.infrastructure as well, maybe actual work, but we see there is more and
:03:01. > :03:05.more charge points at the UK. It has 6000 charging points already. In
:03:05. > :03:11.London, there is great infrastructure already. Over time,
:03:11. > :03:17.this will not be the real issue. People want to know, what happens,
:03:17. > :03:26.can I do this, will I had the support? How long can go for without
:03:26. > :03:32.being charged again? 100 my ills. 160 kilometres. That really does
:03:32. > :03:37.cover most people's commute. More than enough per day. Over and above
:03:37. > :03:43.that, you can have a range extender. It does not drive the wheels, it
:03:43. > :03:48.provides electricity on the way. charge your car at home, your work,
:03:48. > :03:55.there is no tax on electricity. What will it cost me to charge my car to
:03:55. > :04:05.drive for 100 my ills? The current price is somewhat up to �2 50. That
:04:05. > :04:05.
:04:05. > :04:10.is significantly less than gas. about your main competitors? There
:04:10. > :04:17.is the Nissan Leaf, a product from Renault, but the market is really
:04:17. > :04:24.mature. There were 7000 electric cars globally sold. We think this
:04:24. > :04:32.year the number will be 150,000, so a multiple of 20 times in just three
:04:32. > :04:36.years. We are at the tipping point. It will pick up very quickly.
:04:36. > :04:41.The electric car, very interesting indeed. Send us your thoughts and
:04:41. > :04:46.questions about that. Let's now look at China, because it
:04:46. > :04:52.has called for an audit of all government debt as concerns grow
:04:52. > :05:00.over official liabilities in the world's second largest economy.
:05:00. > :05:06.Fill us in on what China is doing and why it is doing this.
:05:06. > :05:10.Essentially they want a national audit of local government debt,
:05:10. > :05:14.specifically, trillions of dollars were borrowed after the financial
:05:14. > :05:18.crisis of the last couple of years to try to sustain China's growth
:05:18. > :05:21.rates, but now the economy is growing a bit more slowly, and
:05:21. > :05:27.thereon lots of fears that some local authorities will not be able
:05:27. > :05:33.to repay their debts. The last all debt that was done showed that they
:05:33. > :05:39.had $1.7 trillion worth of debt by the end of 2010. That is a quarter
:05:39. > :05:44.of GDP. This is the second ever audit that they are doing. It may
:05:44. > :05:51.threaten China's growth. Lots of fears about local governments that
:05:51. > :05:53.are suffering under the debt. It says that it has stopped lots of
:05:53. > :06:01.projects to conduct the all debt. They did not give any details about
:06:01. > :06:08.the timeline. A lot of government borrowing was taken up after the
:06:08. > :06:14.global financial crisis. Local governments took about 80% of total
:06:14. > :06:19.bank lending in China at the end of 2010. A lot of the borrowing has
:06:19. > :06:22.been sent on infrastructure, such as road and rail. -- has been spent.
:06:22. > :06:30.There are lots of fears that these projects may not be financially
:06:30. > :06:35.viable in the long run. Two of the world's biggest
:06:35. > :06:40.advertising groups are to merge. Omnicom and Publicis revealed on
:06:40. > :06:47.Sunday they are to form a giant, responsible for promoting brands is
:06:47. > :06:51.colluding Adidas, Guinness, Starbucks will employ more than
:06:51. > :06:59.130,000 people. It will share the chief executive role between the two
:06:59. > :07:03.heads of the company for at least 30 months.
:07:03. > :07:08.This was quite a surprise announcement. It had all the pomp
:07:08. > :07:16.and circumstance that you expect when two at agencies an ounce
:07:16. > :07:20.getting together in Paris. Tell us your thoughts. There is a lot of
:07:20. > :07:26.excitement and also some surprise that the deal was announced. A lot
:07:26. > :07:32.of pomp, a lot of razzmatazz. They took to the rooftop of the
:07:32. > :07:37.Publicis's headquarters. The big question with this deal, will it
:07:37. > :07:42.stick at all? Will investors actually warm to it. It still has to
:07:42. > :07:47.go through approval on both sides of the Atlantic . One of these two, why
:07:48. > :07:51.they want to do this deal, they say they are hoping to achieve $500
:07:51. > :07:59.million in cost savings. The question is whether clients will
:07:59. > :08:02.warm to it. Will the French government warm to it? Francois
:08:02. > :08:12.Hollande he has not got a great track record in terms of approving
:08:12. > :08:17.this kind of multinational matured -- mergers. It is a sign of the
:08:17. > :08:23.change in the industry. They have been very dominant for a very long
:08:23. > :08:27.time. That in the world of Facebook and Google and other organisations,
:08:27. > :08:32.where they are not necessarily using these huge operations, some of them
:08:32. > :08:37.are just trying to push out their brands and that owned way, they had
:08:37. > :08:41.to change and become a different organisation in this day and age.
:08:41. > :08:45.This deal is about trying to make more money from digital advertising.
:08:45. > :08:52.Revenues are quite low but they have a lot of potential to grow
:08:52. > :08:59.exponentially. So the question is whether they can do that. It is also
:08:59. > :09:06.around making sure they have got consistency. The growth potential in
:09:06. > :09:11.emerging markets is huge. We will see how it works over the next six
:09:11. > :09:15.months. The story that we had just been talking about is all over the
:09:15. > :09:20.front page of the Financial Times and the business section of most
:09:20. > :09:23.papers. We will talk a bit more about that in a moment.
:09:23. > :09:29.China and the European Union have resolved a long-running spat over
:09:29. > :09:32.solar panels. The agreement which was reached after six weeks of talks
:09:32. > :09:41.which -- will see China's solar products regulated to a minimum
:09:41. > :09:43.price. It has also staved off a war over other products. EU solar panel
:09:43. > :09:49.manufacturers had accused Chinese companies are dumping products and
:09:49. > :09:56.selling below cost. A brand-new trading week. Let's look
:09:56. > :10:00.at how the markets are faring. As you can see, quite a significant
:10:00. > :10:07.fall in Japan. The story about China auditing debt does increase fears in