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Now for the latest financial news with the World Business Report. | :00:00. | :00:27. | |
With half a trillion dollars in sales, China's Alibaba is now | :00:28. | :00:31. | |
Plus, from San Francisco start up to the hotel trade's worst nightmare, | :00:32. | :00:35. | |
we hear from the co-founder of property sharing website Airbnb. | :00:36. | :00:38. | |
Also coming up, Japan's Prime Minister Abe continues | :00:39. | :00:48. | |
his European tour, we'll be finding out what's on the agenda | :00:49. | :00:50. | |
But first we start in China, with a giant of the internet. | :00:51. | :01:09. | |
Alibaba dominates online shopping in China, think of it as Amazon, eBay | :01:10. | :01:12. | |
It floated on the New York Stock Exchange a year and a half ago | :01:13. | :01:36. | |
And in a few hours, before the US markets open, | :01:37. | :01:40. | |
it's expected to report record annual profits, despite that | :01:41. | :01:43. | |
Everything about this company is enormous, | :01:44. | :01:54. | |
In the last financial year, the value of goods sold through Alibaba, | :01:55. | :02:06. | |
known as 'gross merchandise volume', was almost half a trillion dollars. | :02:07. | :02:09. | |
That's more than Wal-Mart, so by this measure it's now | :02:10. | :02:11. | |
It's hugely important for China, which is trying to refocus its | :02:12. | :02:30. | |
The company says it accounts for 10% of all shopping in Chinaand supports | :02:31. | :02:34. | |
All this has made its founder, former schoolteacher Jack Ma, | :02:35. | :02:41. | |
He's currently worth $33 billion, making him Asia's richest man. | :02:42. | :02:57. | |
Let's talk to our correspondent in Shanghai Robin Brant. | :02:58. | :03:03. | |
Good to see you. Not quite as rich! Beijing would be very happy about | :03:04. | :03:19. | |
those numbers, it confirms that they are making that shift towards | :03:20. | :03:24. | |
getting consumers to spend more? The health of Alibaba is in no way a | :03:25. | :03:31. | |
measurement of the health of China's shoppers. This is showing | :03:32. | :03:37. | |
record growth, that is very good for the Chinese economy overall. | :03:38. | :03:42. | |
Investors are more interested in comparing fourth-quarter figures to | :03:43. | :03:47. | |
growth over recent years, particularly how well Alibaba was | :03:48. | :03:52. | |
doing before it went public. Back then, it was growing quite a lot. | :03:53. | :03:58. | |
Since it has gone public, things have not been as good. There is a | :03:59. | :04:02. | |
feeling that they could be doing better, particularly with ambitions | :04:03. | :04:09. | |
to expand overseas. It is a part of the business that the CEO wants to | :04:10. | :04:13. | |
grow. The idea is that overseas is contributing less to Alibaba than | :04:14. | :04:21. | |
they have been in the past. Alibaba is very important to the Chinese | :04:22. | :04:27. | |
economy. It is a sign of China's shoppers, Alibaba has been at the | :04:28. | :04:36. | |
front of digital pay platforms. It is a great moment to judge whether | :04:37. | :04:41. | |
China's shoppers are feeling the pinch in the slowdown of the | :04:42. | :04:46. | |
economy. The economy is still growing, but the slowest growth in | :04:47. | :04:51. | |
almost 25 years. We always appreciate it. Talk to you soon. | :04:52. | :04:56. | |
Let's stay with the internet business, and talk about Airbnb. | :04:57. | :04:59. | |
In just a few years the accommodation sharing website | :05:00. | :05:01. | |
has gone from a tiny San Francisco start-up to a $25 billion company | :05:02. | :05:04. | |
that has challenged the traditional hotel business. | :05:05. | :05:11. | |
It's not been without controversy though. | :05:12. | :05:15. | |
This week Berlin banned homeowners from renting | :05:16. | :05:17. | |
their properties to tourists to try and address a housing shortage. | :05:18. | :05:21. | |
The BBC's Simon Atkinson spoke to Airbnb co-founder Nathan Blecharczyk | :05:22. | :05:23. | |
and asked him for reaction to the move. | :05:24. | :05:36. | |
This is a very new model, the rules that govern it often go back | :05:37. | :05:47. | |
decades. I think everybody realises that the policies need to be | :05:48. | :05:50. | |
modernised for the 21st century. Governments are trying to figure out | :05:51. | :05:54. | |
how to do this. There are a lot of different jurisdictions, it is a | :05:55. | :05:58. | |
bumpy process. But when countries have passed new policies, they have | :05:59. | :06:02. | |
been very favourable to codesharing. The Indian government recently | :06:03. | :06:07. | |
signalled that they think it has a lot of potential for the country. | :06:08. | :06:12. | |
Your business has revolutionised travel, certainly in the last | :06:13. | :06:17. | |
decade. What will be the next big change? What we've demonstrated is | :06:18. | :06:23. | |
that there is an immense appetite to travel more authentically and | :06:24. | :06:27. | |
immerse yourself in the culture, as opposed to having a commoditised | :06:28. | :06:36. | |
experienced. I think the personal connection is important. Your | :06:37. | :06:43. | |
company has been extraordinarily successful, and according to Forbes, | :06:44. | :06:46. | |
you and your cofounders are millionaires. But you still read out | :06:47. | :06:50. | |
part of your house through the site. I think it's incredibly | :06:51. | :06:57. | |
important to stay close to be using experience. I have posted almost 200 | :06:58. | :07:02. | |
guests at this point. I want to be doing what our customers are doing | :07:03. | :07:06. | |
every single day. As a traveller, I have also stayed in hundreds of | :07:07. | :07:09. | |
different homes. Sometimes they stay in supercheap leases, sometimes I go | :07:10. | :07:13. | |
for something more expensive. To Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe | :07:14. | :07:15. | |
now, who's on a tour of Europe. On Wednesday he held talks with | :07:16. | :07:18. | |
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, they both expressed concern about | :07:19. | :07:21. | |
turbulence on the currency markets. The yen has soared to an 18-month | :07:22. | :07:24. | |
high against the dollar after the Bank of Japan held off expanding | :07:25. | :07:27. | |
monetary stimulus last week. Mr Abe is hosting a meeting of G7 | :07:28. | :07:38. | |
finance ministers at the end of the month amid rising concerns | :07:39. | :07:41. | |
about the state of Japan's economy. Today he's in the UK to meet | :07:42. | :07:48. | |
Prime Minister David Cameron. Michael Taylor is Japan | :07:49. | :07:53. | |
specialist at Oxford Economics. Thank you for coming in. He's got | :07:54. | :08:07. | |
enough on his plate, I heard he is trying to get some of the European | :08:08. | :08:14. | |
economies to ease up on their fiscal measures, less austerity and more | :08:15. | :08:21. | |
stimulus? Doing that so that Europe and the UK will buy more from Japan? | :08:22. | :08:26. | |
Is, as you said the Japanese economy may even be in recession -- yes. One | :08:27. | :08:34. | |
of the ways out of that is through exports. They do have a world-class | :08:35. | :08:41. | |
manufacturing sector. If Europe and the US and China are growing | :08:42. | :08:47. | |
strongly, that is beneficial. The strength of the yen is a problem, | :08:48. | :08:53. | |
but it's not the end of the game. If the global economy is strong, that | :08:54. | :08:57. | |
will benefit Japan is hugely. That is not -- about is the mission | :08:58. | :09:09. | |
Shinzo Abe is on today. What about Germany and the UK? He has met with | :09:10. | :09:15. | |
Angela Merkel and David Cameron, probably not the two people I would | :09:16. | :09:19. | |
first go to if we were looking for fiscal stimulus. Ahead of this | :09:20. | :09:24. | |
summit in Tokyo later this month, he wants to get some sort of deal, it | :09:25. | :09:30. | |
may not amount to very much in terms of cash, but he needs to present to | :09:31. | :09:35. | |
the Japanese people that there is some offering. That will then allow | :09:36. | :09:41. | |
him to delay the political problem at home with the sales tax increase | :09:42. | :09:44. | |
due to come in next year. He wants to do -- delay that, and a stimulus | :09:45. | :09:55. | |
package would be a way to do that. You said consumer spending is weak, | :09:56. | :10:00. | |
possibly in a recession. The government is spending $700 billion | :10:01. | :10:03. | |
a year, but nothing seems to be working at the moment. They need | :10:04. | :10:10. | |
structural change? They do. The fundamental problem is that the | :10:11. | :10:13. | |
corporate sector has huge piles of cash that they sit on. They don't | :10:14. | :10:20. | |
invest in wages, they tend to be buying companies overseas. The | :10:21. | :10:23. | |
structural reform that Japan needs is to encourage Japanese companies | :10:24. | :10:29. | |
to spend the cash, increase wages. That will increase consumer spending | :10:30. | :10:32. | |
and get inflation above zero. That is the root problem that the | :10:33. | :10:37. | |
Japanese economy has. The amount of printing money or fiscal plans will | :10:38. | :10:50. | |
change that. I'll be back with Adnan, I will see you very shortly. | :10:51. | :10:58. | |
Don't forget you can get in touch with me and some of | :10:59. | :11:02. |