:00:00. > :00:00.Now for the latest financial news with Sally
:00:00. > :00:21.It's a growth versus reform debate for China's new five year plan,
:00:22. > :00:24.will leaders concluding an economic strategy meeting embrace
:00:25. > :00:34.And making money from the black stuff is that much
:00:35. > :00:37.harder, today it's the turn of Shell to reveal
:00:38. > :00:38.results, big write-downs are expected
:00:39. > :00:47.as it mothballs drilling operations off Alaska and Canada.
:00:48. > :00:53.Also in the programme, cash is king in Myanmar but is there space
:00:54. > :00:56.Karishma Vaswani is there for us as voters prepare
:00:57. > :01:00.A top-level Communist party meeting in China where the nation's economic
:01:01. > :01:03.and social policies for the next five years are being hammered out
:01:04. > :01:06.wraps up today; then the state media is due to start revealing what
:01:07. > :01:09.elements will be included in the final plan, to be ratified in March.
:01:10. > :01:12.One of the measures rumoured to be included is the end
:01:13. > :01:24.Some commentators suggest the government could now formally allow
:01:25. > :01:28.John Sudworth is in the town of Rudong in Jiangsu province,
:01:29. > :01:31.once held up as a model of enforcement for the one child
:01:32. > :01:41.policy, but now weighed down by an ageing population.
:01:42. > :01:53.John, tell us more about how it has worked out there, this policy? How
:01:54. > :01:59.might it change if the Chinese Communist Party takes on that idea?
:02:00. > :02:04.It is extraordinary. There is no area in China that has enforced the
:02:05. > :02:09.one child policy as much as this county. There are about a million
:02:10. > :02:14.people, the results are everywhere. Half of all schools have closed over
:02:15. > :02:22.the last decade, everywhere you look there are old people. We spoke to
:02:23. > :02:26.one man who said he bitterly regretted the compliance with the
:02:27. > :02:30.one child policy. His wife had two abortions against her will after
:02:31. > :02:34.their first son was born. There son lives a long away and the man said
:02:35. > :02:38.that if they had been allowed to have the two extra children, they
:02:39. > :02:45.would not now be growing old alone. It gives you a sense of the cost of
:02:46. > :02:50.the policy, this ticking demographic timebomb which is coming to fruition
:02:51. > :02:54.here. The huge social cost, the burden, the declining workforce.
:02:55. > :02:59.Many analysts suggest that faced with this reality, that the
:03:00. > :03:07.Communist Party will now be forced to act. We may well get the formal
:03:08. > :03:11.end of the one child policy and have it replaced with a two child policy.
:03:12. > :03:17.Details will begin to emerge over the next few days. As you said, a
:03:18. > :03:21.massive social cost. Also an economic cost. The Chinese
:03:22. > :03:34.leadership cannot afford to carry on with the policy when they are
:03:35. > :03:37.economy is slowing down? -- there. Yes, the policy is acting as a huge
:03:38. > :03:42.drag on the economy. Whatever they do will be too little too late, the
:03:43. > :03:46.demographic effect will be seen for years to come. Even if the birth
:03:47. > :03:51.rate jumps overnight, it will take decades for the new berths to work
:03:52. > :03:58.their way through. The big thing to watch will be the growth rate, a lot
:03:59. > :04:04.of speculation that it will be lowered to 6.5%. Admission, things
:04:05. > :04:08.are also slowing -- births. That is the absolute limit with the Chinese
:04:09. > :04:14.economy, their limit they need to reach if they need to fulfil the
:04:15. > :04:33.promise of doubling Z GDP from 2010 to 2020. It is a huge task -- the
:04:34. > :04:38.GDP. They give us a very good clues about the future direction of
:04:39. > :04:47.policy, and how the party leaders are grappling with some of these
:04:48. > :04:53.huge challenges. It is fascinating to look back on the effects of the
:04:54. > :04:54.policy, we will update you with changes from the Communist Party as
:04:55. > :04:56.we receive them. Earlier this year, Shell famously
:04:57. > :04:59.pulled out of a massive expedition to explore for oil in the Arctic
:05:00. > :05:02.after drilling only one well. It's likely to include
:05:03. > :05:05.a big write-down You'd expect investors
:05:06. > :05:17.to be furious, but Shell is exciting them with
:05:18. > :05:20.another plan - a buy-out of rival energy company BG
:05:21. > :05:32.as Jeremy Howell reports. Shell pored over $6 billion into
:05:33. > :05:36.their expedition to find oil of Alaska, once they were there they
:05:37. > :05:42.drilled one well which they found dry and abandoned the project. They
:05:43. > :05:50.know it is money must be written off against profits. Investors are now
:05:51. > :05:54.interested in another big scheme that Shell has under Wacol in an $85
:05:55. > :05:59.million bid to buy out rival energy company BG. They have working
:06:00. > :06:11.oilfields off the coast of Brazil and produce a great amount of
:06:12. > :06:19.liquefied natural. Shell is good at deep water, which is one of the main
:06:20. > :06:24.products of BG. Shell could see them grow, it could become the biggest
:06:25. > :06:29.energy portfolio in the world after the deal closes. Shell has the same
:06:30. > :06:32.problem as every other oil company. The price of crude has slumped over
:06:33. > :06:39.the past year, because of the rise of hydraulic fracking in the US
:06:40. > :06:44.which has pumped millions of extra barrels of oil onto the world
:06:45. > :06:51.markets. The oil majors are now struggling to make revenues meet
:06:52. > :06:54.costs. It is relatively easy to cut spending, moving back from the
:06:55. > :06:58.frontiers. A few years people were talking about the Arctic as an
:06:59. > :07:02.exciting place to explore, now they are retreating and calling for the
:07:03. > :07:07.safer options which are less expensive. Oil companies are under
:07:08. > :07:13.constant pressure to find new fields to replenish their reserves. Rather
:07:14. > :07:17.than explore for crude in the Arctic or deep underwater, Shell has
:07:18. > :07:19.decided it is cheaper to purchase a rival which has already found it.
:07:20. > :07:28.Other majors may follow its lead. The other oil majors will be
:07:29. > :07:32.reporting tomorrow. In other news: South Korea's Samsung
:07:33. > :07:35.reported its latest results and It's thanks to
:07:36. > :07:39.a revamped smartphone lineup. Its performance had lately been
:07:40. > :07:41.affected by increasing competition with Apple as well
:07:42. > :07:51.as cheaper Chinese products. In just over a week, Myanmar,
:07:52. > :07:53.one of the poorest countries in South East Asia, heads to
:07:54. > :07:56.the polls in an historic election. After 50 years of isolation,
:07:57. > :07:59.Myanmar's economy is slowly opening But as our
:08:00. > :08:09.Asia Business Correspondent Karishma Vaswani found out from Yangon, some
:08:10. > :08:22.things in the largely cash-based Early-morning in the street market
:08:23. > :08:27.in downtown Myanmar. You can smell the products in the air, people are
:08:28. > :08:33.haggling over prices. Like in most of Myanmar, all of the transactions
:08:34. > :08:40.are taking place in cash. In this society, cash is still king. At
:08:41. > :08:44.banks across the country, money sits piled up on the floor. Debit and
:08:45. > :08:49.credit cards are quite rare here. Most people pay for even the ticket
:08:50. > :08:56.items, such as houses and cars, in cash. Myanmar is trying to introduce
:08:57. > :09:01.more modern forms of banking that most of us in Asia are already used
:09:02. > :09:05.to, such as ATM cards. As you can see, if a hard sell. Most people
:09:06. > :09:12.still do not trust those kinds of services. Making a deposit into your
:09:13. > :09:22.account means simply log the cash into the bank -- lugging. What would
:09:23. > :09:31.you do if you had to move a million? In Myanmar, it's as easy as throwing
:09:32. > :09:37.it on the back of a pickup truck - in Sachs, of course. The armed
:09:38. > :09:45.guards, no fuss, just a lot of cash on the move -- sacks. Let's have a
:09:46. > :09:54.look at the financial markets in Asia reacting to the news from the
:09:55. > :10:03.Federal Reserve in the US. It has implied that perhaps in December at
:10:04. > :10:05.the cost of oil will go up -- that.