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Now for the latest financial news with Sally | :00:00. | :00:00. | |
Five years after the Fukushima disaster, is the world becoming more | :00:00. | :00:19. | |
And how India is looking to private investment for more innovation | :00:20. | :00:26. | |
Welcome to World Business Report. I'm Sally Bundock. | :00:27. | :00:43. | |
Also in the programme: The boss of Samsung is warning this will be | :00:44. | :00:46. | |
Our team in Asia will have the details. | :00:47. | :00:49. | |
As you've been hearing, Japan is marking the fifth | :00:50. | :00:51. | |
anniversary of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that left | :00:52. | :00:53. | |
The enormous quake struck offshore, creating a vast water surge that | :00:54. | :01:00. | |
It also triggered the world's worst nuclear disaster | :01:01. | :01:09. | |
since Chernobyl, in 1986, after the tsunami knocked out power to | :01:10. | :01:11. | |
the Fukushima nuclear plant, taking cooling systems offline, which set | :01:12. | :01:14. | |
Japan is struggling to restart its nuclear industry | :01:15. | :01:23. | |
and is continuing to rely on costly fossil fuel imports. | :01:24. | :01:25. | |
The Fukushima plant was designed to withstand an earthquake and it did. | :01:26. | :01:41. | |
The reactors shut down safely. But the 14 metre tsunami that followed | :01:42. | :01:46. | |
wasn't planned for. It knocked out cooling systems, allowing the | :01:47. | :01:49. | |
reactors to overheat, leading to a series of explosions. Before the | :01:50. | :01:56. | |
disaster Japan had 54 reactors available, producing one third of | :01:57. | :01:58. | |
the country's electricity. In the aftermath all of them were shut | :01:59. | :02:03. | |
down, and only a handful have since been restarted. There are currently | :02:04. | :02:08. | |
just two in operation. Other countries are facing out nuclear | :02:09. | :02:13. | |
power, many of them in Europe. Germany had 17 reactors by this | :02:14. | :02:16. | |
ago, it is now down to eight and they are due to close by 2022. China | :02:17. | :02:22. | |
is still keen on nuclear power and plans to build at least six reactors | :02:23. | :02:26. | |
a year until 2020 and wants to become a major exporter of nuclear | :02:27. | :02:31. | |
technology. Russia, India and South Korea all want to build new plants | :02:32. | :02:35. | |
as well. So the industry's bruised but for the moment it has a future. | :02:36. | :02:39. | |
Joining me now is Steve Thomas, Emeritus Professor of Energy Policy | :02:40. | :02:42. | |
Thanks for being on the programme. For obvious reasons what happened | :02:43. | :02:53. | |
five years ago completely put on hold, if not backwards, the nuclear | :02:54. | :03:00. | |
policy in Japan. But other countries in the world completely changed | :03:01. | :03:02. | |
their thinking about their nuclear policy. I think you can divide the | :03:03. | :03:12. | |
country is up into three sets. There were the countries like Switzerland, | :03:13. | :03:15. | |
Germany and Italy that really turned their back on nuclear power and I | :03:16. | :03:20. | |
don't think there's any going back for those countries. Other | :03:21. | :03:24. | |
countries, like perhaps France and China, did take a big pause for | :03:25. | :03:28. | |
thought, while countries like the United States and the UK didn't have | :03:29. | :03:35. | |
much -- feel much impact. So there were different reactions. In terms | :03:36. | :03:40. | |
of Japan, if we could focus on it to start with, it has tried to get more | :03:41. | :03:45. | |
nuclear reactors back online, it's not been an easy path for obvious | :03:46. | :03:49. | |
reasons. But actually for the Japanese economy it is so important | :03:50. | :03:54. | |
that it looks at where its energy is coming from, given the fact that he | :03:55. | :04:02. | |
doesn't have resources of its own? It seems to be in a bit of a | :04:03. | :04:05. | |
no-man's-land at the moment. It's not being successful at bringing | :04:06. | :04:11. | |
back its nuclear power plants, but isn't pursuing alternatives. If we | :04:12. | :04:15. | |
look at Germany, it has set itself against nuclear and is vigorously | :04:16. | :04:19. | |
pursuing renewables. Then they are doing much better. I think Japan | :04:20. | :04:23. | |
needs to make a decision. It either needs to give up on nuclear, or it | :04:24. | :04:29. | |
needs to really go back and force those plants open. But I'm not sure | :04:30. | :04:35. | |
that's politically acceptable. In the meantime we've got countries | :04:36. | :04:39. | |
like China that is ploughing ahead. Also, China is exporting its nuclear | :04:40. | :04:44. | |
technology, investing in the UK as well. Some countries are really | :04:45. | :04:50. | |
ploughing ahead. There is a lot of talk about exports and nuclear power | :04:51. | :04:55. | |
plants around the world. Mostly supplied by Russia, with China | :04:56. | :05:00. | |
trying to get in on the market. But that's always been the case. There's | :05:01. | :05:04. | |
always been countries talking about nuclear powered -- power, not for | :05:05. | :05:10. | |
developing countries nine out of ten of those come to nothing, mainly | :05:11. | :05:14. | |
because of finance. Nuclear power seems to be getting more expensive | :05:15. | :05:19. | |
so finance will get more difficult. In terms of China, it's talking | :05:20. | :05:25. | |
about getting into markets, but it really only has three or four and | :05:26. | :05:31. | |
all of them look quite distant prospects. The prospect of selling | :05:32. | :05:34. | |
the Briton is quite some way away. They are something like seven or | :05:35. | :05:40. | |
eight in mining terms of building in Britain. They are just investors. | :05:41. | :05:48. | |
Thank you very much for joining us. There's so more on our website about | :05:49. | :05:53. | |
what's happening in Japan and the indications for the nuclear | :05:54. | :05:54. | |
industry. Moving on. It's a big day for the Korean | :05:55. | :05:56. | |
smartphone maker Samsung. It's got its AGM | :05:57. | :05:59. | |
and the boss is warning this is Leisha Chi is in Singapore | :06:00. | :06:02. | |
for us. This is an important board meeting | :06:03. | :06:15. | |
when the company is selling its latest smartphone. What are the | :06:16. | :06:19. | |
challenges it is facing? It looks like Samsung's CEO is trying to | :06:20. | :06:24. | |
manage shareholder expectations ahead of that annual meeting today. | :06:25. | :06:28. | |
It was in a letter to them that he said it was going to be a tough year | :06:29. | :06:32. | |
and their core product is of smart phones, TVs and memory chips will | :06:33. | :06:36. | |
face oversupply issues and intensified price competition. We | :06:37. | :06:41. | |
are already seeing that happen to Samsung and other big smartphone | :06:42. | :06:47. | |
makers. Earlier this year Samsung's caught early -- quarter profits | :06:48. | :06:54. | |
fell. They have some new models coming out today and this is their | :06:55. | :07:02. | |
biggest moneymaker, the Galaxy line of smartphones, but they have been | :07:03. | :07:06. | |
losing the market to Apple and Huawei. It's not as if people will | :07:07. | :07:12. | |
go out and spend $1000 on a new phone model each time one comes out. | :07:13. | :07:17. | |
Aside from that, another big development we can expect from | :07:18. | :07:21. | |
today's meeting is a change to its corporate governance. Samsung is a | :07:22. | :07:24. | |
huge company and so they are expected to allow non- CEOs to take | :07:25. | :07:30. | |
out the chairman role in eight of companies within the conglomerate. | :07:31. | :07:34. | |
Interesting. Lots of change going on. Thank you. | :07:35. | :07:36. | |
The amount India spends on health-care compared to | :07:37. | :07:41. | |
the size of its economy is among the lowest in the world, | :07:42. | :07:44. | |
and so private firms are stepping in to treat those who can afford it. | :07:45. | :07:48. | |
This has inspired a host of companies, both big and small, | :07:49. | :07:50. | |
to work on new, often innovative services. | :07:51. | :07:52. | |
But how much of a difference can they make? | :07:53. | :07:55. | |
Shilpa Kannan went to Bangalore to find out. | :07:56. | :08:04. | |
It may look like a pizza delivery service but what is actually being | :08:05. | :08:10. | |
brought to people's doorsteps is a sophisticated device for testing | :08:11. | :08:16. | |
eyesight. Just one idea to tackle a common problem that hospital visits | :08:17. | :08:23. | |
can be daunting and expensive. Getting ill and pay medical bills | :08:24. | :08:29. | |
are thought to drive more than 60 million Indians into poverty every | :08:30. | :08:32. | |
year, is a good private businesses be part of the answer, bringing down | :08:33. | :08:35. | |
costs and getting more efficient healthcare services to more people? | :08:36. | :08:42. | |
And businesses are getting the inventions into hospitals as well. | :08:43. | :08:46. | |
Like this monitor, used during pregnancy. Smaller and less | :08:47. | :08:48. | |
expensive than the conventional machines. Once the belt is strapped | :08:49. | :08:54. | |
on, a mobile phone app can monitor the heart rate of the fetus. This is | :08:55. | :09:00. | |
our first product which we have resigned to be used by health | :09:01. | :09:07. | |
workers, which will be cost-effective and it works in the | :09:08. | :09:13. | |
Indian healthcare scenario. Today India imports nearly 75% of the | :09:14. | :09:21. | |
major medical equipment. And it isn't just start ups. Global giants | :09:22. | :09:25. | |
like IBM are also ringing the latest technology here. Within India you | :09:26. | :09:30. | |
really get an amplification of the broader problem within healthcare, | :09:31. | :09:34. | |
which is clinicians have very little time to meet with patience. Within | :09:35. | :09:38. | |
the US is the ratio of patients to oncologist is 100: one. In India it | :09:39. | :09:46. | |
is 1600:1, so the time pressure is even greater. Nearly 1 million | :09:47. | :09:53. | |
Indians die every year because of inadequate healthcare facilities. | :09:54. | :09:56. | |
About 700 million people have no access to specialist care. And as | :09:57. | :10:00. | |
the country grapples with growing health-care costs, and a shortage of | :10:01. | :10:05. | |
doctors, technology driven innovation change is the only hope | :10:06. | :10:09. | |
many Indians have for better medical treatment. | :10:10. | :10:19. | |
many Indians have for better medical treatment. | :10:20. | :10:19. | |
Let's have a look at the markets. As you can see, slightly higher across | :10:20. | :10:26. | |
the board, which is a better view. Last time I looked they were all | :10:27. | :10:29. | |
negative. Concern of course about the global economy. We will talk | :10:30. | :10:33. | |
about that in a bit more detail in a few minutes and we look at the | :10:34. | :10:34. | |
papers. | :10:35. | :10:37. |