01/12/2015 World Business Report

Those are the latest headlines from BBC World News.

Now for the latest financial news with

The smart money says all eyes on Africa when it comes to investment.

From Google to China and the US, all falling over themselves to lay

And now African leaders are pitching their most bankable projects

in London to bag a slice of some $7 billion up for grabs.

The great Chinese slowdown: China's factory bosses remain gloomy with

the latest numbers at their lowest level in more than three years.

Welcome to World Business Report, I'm Aaron Heslehurst.

Give me nine minutes and I will give you a fascinating snapshot of all

the latest in the world of business and money.

It seems like the smart money has its eyes firmly on Africa when it

Google's ploughed millions into the continent and China

and the US are falling over each other to lay their stake.

Now the heads of state from 10 African countries are out to

impress the money men when they present their countries

most bankable projects to investors at the Global African Investment

According to FDI Intelligence, Africa is the world's

fastest-growing region for new foreign direct investment projects.

Africa enjoyed a 65% increase in new capital investment in 2014,

with foreign direct investment totalling an estimated $87 billion.

Now a lot has been made of Chinese investment in the continent.

But as you can see here, China in fact only just make it into the top

Despite the recent instability in the country Egypt is still

the number one destination for that money, with Angola

As you might expect, a lot of that money is going

into the oil and gas sectors, but investment in real estate

and communication infrastructure and technology is also on the rise.

Alan Cameron, Africa Economist at Exotix.

Thank you for waking up and coming in so early. It is interesting that

the leaders will be here, because you wouldn't think they would be

getting down to this, maybe they are here for a party in London. $7

billion isn't really a lot of money, is it? To put that in the context of

the general African economies, if you include North Africa you are

looking at $2.1 trillion, so the fact that the investment is going up

to 84 billion, that is not an incredible amount of money. You

would hope that 24% of GDP would be investment, around $400 billion. We

keep hearing about Africa as the next frontier, the place to be, but

from what you are saying, if it should be 200 billion and it is only

87 billion, why aren't we seeing that? Won't be seeing more? We are

coming from a low base, and there are a lot of obstacles to investing.

I think we are at an early stage, and... Are investors worried about

corruption? It is a word that comes up a lot in the African continent,

it is very hard to have an interview in Africa and not discuss

corruption, but it is an obstacle that people learn to do business

with, and it is not the highest on the list. There are issues like

finding local talent and finding capital, but it is hard not to

discuss it. Typically you might ask the question what Africa needs in

terms of investment. Africa need things to create jobs, doesn't it?

You can look at low commodity prices is an opportunity to drive

investment in different areas, ultimately commodity investments

tend to be capital intensive, they don't use much jobs, and they have a

high import content. What Africa really need is investment into

manufacturing, things that create jobs. We all talk about the great

demographic vault, a new class of consumers, and we need jobs for

people to buy things for this new consumer class to evolve. And also

while we are seeing wage increases in the likes of China and Vietnam,

we may see a big shift. I can't let you answer that because I have to

wrap it up. Thank you very much.

The continued slowdown in China: Manufacturing activity in the

country slowed in November for the fourth month dropping to the lowest

Rico Hizon is in Singapore with the details.

What is interesting about this, and correct me if I'm wrong,

manufacturing continues to be weak but the services

I can only imagine the officials in Beijing will be happy about that.

That's right, but overall the Chinese economy continues to

struggle and this latest data highlights the economy shifting

focus from manufacturing to services in a way that is proving to be quite

rocky. You mentioned that this is being attributed to the

rise, particularly being driven by the online sales on a single day,

the 11th of November. It is like cyber Monday in the US or

Thanksgiving in the UK. Alibaba .com made about 14 billion US dollars in

online sales. Of course, there is still that the main economic engine,

that is manufacturing, and it was at its weakest in more than three

years, shrinking more than expect that a of November. The Purchasing

Managers' Index now stands at 49.6, and anything below 50 indicates a

correction, so there is still a lot to be desired despite all the

interest, rate cuts and else that has been implemented by

the government and the people's bank of China.

BAT says it does not tolerate corruption.

Japan's largest media group, Nikkei, has completed its purchase of The

It's the biggest international acquisition

Online subscriptions now account for around 70-per cent of the

While questions have been raised about editorial independence,

the FT's chief executive believes the acquisition is a good fit.

As part of the BBC's series 100 Women we've been meeting young

female entrepreneurs, profiling 30 businesswomen under 30

We'll be going to the UAE in just a moment, but first to the US where

It's a mobile app enabling children to create

Sometimes there is a higher bar for a marathon, not a sprint.

Sometimes there is a higher bar for someone to take me seriously because

I am a female. This allows anyone to easily create their own programmes.

Right now a lot of kids use it, they are fearless and Buddhist dive into

something and start programming, because Nvidia told them they can't

get. My name is Samantha Geimer, I'm 29, and my business is Hopscotch to

technology. Don't forget you can get

in touch with me and some of The schools inspectorate, Ofsted,

has warned of a growing north-south divide in the standard of secondary

education, and says the children of