08/02/2016 World Business Report

Growth figures out today will show India is to become the world's

fastest growing economy, but is the real economy feeling the benefit?

And in our new series on education, we take a look at the importance put

Also in the programme: The Lunar New Year holiday is well under

way in Asia - Rico Hizon will talk us through the great expectations.

Let's start with Newsweek expect out of India. -- news we expect out of

India. In the next few hours we will find

out how fast the Indian economy grew in the final

three months of last year. Analysts will be looking to see

if the country, which imports 80% of its oil, will

have benefited from the collapse The World Bank predicts India will

grow by 7.8% this year, that's the fastest rate

for any major global economy. But there's concern the benefits

of that growth are not filtering The car industry has traditionally

been seen as a guide to how things are going,

and Shilpa Kannan was at the Fast cars, new launches and a

hopeful industry. After years of underperformance the expectation

here is that India's growing economy will finally read of up business.

Indian car sales grew by more than 7.5% last year, faster than in any

of the other large carp markets in the world -- rev up business. Hoping

to cash in on this, global carmakers have spent hundreds of millions of

dollars on factories like this one -- car markets in the world. In

common with other brands, Nissan uses this one to make cars for

export. It is also betting on more Indians buying cars. For now it only

has 1.5% share of the local market but it is here for the long haul. We

are only around 13 cars per 1000 inhabitants. When you look at the US

it is 800 cars for 100 inhabitants, so there is a lot of potential for

growth. The pace of growth in India's economy is outpacing the

rest of the world and the auto industry seems to follow the trend.

While people in cities by cars many worry this rapid economic growth

isn't affecting the two thirds of India's population that live away

from urban areas. Sales of motorbikes and small trucks in rural

India have been weak with back-to-back monsoons leaving many

farmers worse off and wary of spending money. That has been felt

by businesses like Mahindra Mahindra, the largest battery maker

in India. There was some liquidity issues. Frankly the economy is a

sleeping giant. One of the reasons sales have not been surging as much

as the media think it has is because the rural area has a lot of ground

to cover. Sales are a good indicator of how people feel about the

economy. Manufacturers hope that optimism at about 2016 will help the

industry pick up speed -- optimism at -- optimism about.

Most markets in Asia, apart from Japan, are closed today for the

Nearly all of the other share markets in Asia are closed.

Despite this, Rico is joining usnow from our Singapore bureau.

He is working, as usual. Nice to see you. Always a pleasure to be on

World Business Report on holiday. He is just so faithful. He loves it so

much. The year of the monkey sounds very mischievous. Talk us through

the great expectations. A lot of challenges are expected in the year

of the monkey. It is a time for celebration right now across Asia

and basically an opportunity to look to what the next 12 months will

bring. So we went out on the streets in Singapore to see what some

business people are expecting from this fire monkey. I feel that in the

year of the fire monkey, I work in mobile tech, so I think there will

be a trend towards small businesses growing and social enterprise. I

wish that the year of the monkey will bring prosperity to the banking

industry although I know there will be talented as. I work in the real

estate sector and in my opinion the year of the monkey should be quite

challenging -- I know there will be challenges. I work in performance

coaching and innovation and believe that in the year of the fire monkey

innovation will be continuously trending as a topic, not only in

companies but outside companies. I am from the hospitality industry.

For the year of the monkey the economy is not yet good. I don't

think people travel much but we can hope for the best. I am from the

legal industry and it has been, in the shipping department, I expect

the fire monkey to help us pick up. Sally, you mentioned the fire

monkey's mischievous character and this will mean a volatile and rocky

time in the markets. There will always be a lot of ups and downs. I

absolutely believe you. I think you are spot on. It will be one of those

years. Lovely to see you. In a child's school career,

the kindergarten years are supposed Nowadays pre-school is regarded

as formal training, that should prepare toddlers for the

future demands of life and work. South Africa is investing more money

in nursery schools, hoping that during these formative

years, the artisans and engineers However, with

the serious economic challenges that the country is facing, it's hard to

determine whether these programmes The BBC's Lerato Mbele has been

visiting pre-schools The day begins with a prayer and at

the national anthem. Teaching preschoolers to be patriotic and

proud is important at this school. Social values are the basis upon

which this creche was built in 1963. Across town lies the privately owned

Buttercup Preschool. It caters mainly for the children of a new

middle class. We will start off with a morning reading and then the

creative work, which is cutting and pasting skills, experimenting with

colour and form and texture. At $3000 per year, fees at the

Buttercup Preschool are ten times higher than those in Soweto and yet

the curriculum is quite similar. However, the Soweto creche is partly

funded by donors with high unemployment in the area. We must

work altogether. Also they give us ten children who are not paying

nothing, just to take a child from the street. South Africa's national

education system has been described as a national catastrophe and even

the minister in charge concurs. In trying to avert the problem a lot of

money has been directed at high school education but there is now

recognition that perhaps the best place to start is at preschool.

Education makes up a sizeable portion of government spending.

Almost 10% in total. What we are doing at the moment is to focus on

the quality of early childhood development. We want all our city

centres to teach the same thing. Eventually we want to produce 30,000

artisans by 2030. The government vision is to create a skilled

workforce mainly because investors say that poor training and low

productivity are the biggest weaknesses in the South African

economy. And so as these toddlers play they are not aware of the

challenges ahead of them. They trust innocently that their future is

guaranteed. China's foreign exchange reserves

have fallen to their lowest level in more than three years as Beijing

sells dollars to defend the yuan. According to the central bank,

China's foreign currency reserves The country has been running down

its vast foreign currency holdings in a bid to boost the yuan's value

and stem a flow of funds overseas. Germany's financial watchdog says

it's shut down the German arm The bank has been forbidden from

taking customers' payments, other In September, German prosecutors

searched the bank's offices as part of an investigation into tax

evasion and money laundering. So, a quick look at markets. As

mentioned, most of them are closed in Asia today as they celebrate the

year of the monkey. Japan, however, is open 1.3% higher. The yen is a

bit weaker. Toyota's earnings out Friday. It is a bit weaker. Shares

down 3% because numbers were disappointing. I will see you