20/05/2016 World Business Report

Those are the latest headlines from BBC World News.

Now for the latest financial news with the World Business Report.

But do G7 finance chiefs gathering in Japan,

With visitor numbers already down by half,

does the latest disaster spell the end for Egypt's tourist industry?

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

We will be speaking to a tourism expert about Egypt in just a moment.

We start in the city of Sendai in North Eastern Japan,

where in the next few hours finance chiefs from the G7 group

of industrialised nations will begin two days of talks.

The rather fetching pink kimonos are out and the ceremonial barrels

But for the top movers and shakers in global finance,

the likes of IMF chief Christine Lagarde and Bank of England governor

Mark Carney, the party atmosphere might prove to be short lived.

Here are some of the things they will be talking about.

Top of the agenda, fears of a worsening slowdown in the world

The IMF has cut its world growth forecasts three

It's still predicting growth of over 3% this year,

but the sense is that things are getting worse, not better.

The Japanese think governments should agree to spend more,

it's a view shared in the US, France and Italy.

But the Germans and the British are still convinced

Then there's this elephant in the room.

Britain's looming referendum on whether to leave the EU is

And there has been a lot of finger pointing over tax havens, many of

The Bank of Japan governor though has been reminding

his guests of the devastating earthquake five years ago.

He said if Japan can recover from that, we can work

Makoto Itoh is a former Professor of the University of Tokyo

Needless to say, we at currently faced with many challenges that need

to be addressed on the global economic front. The indescribable

difficulties of the last five years, they will give us the courage that

the G7 needs to demonstrate to the world leadership in tackling the

economic challenges facing us. Makoto Itoh is a former Professor

of the University of Tokyo Can you explain, I think the big

debate at this G7 Summit is, do you continue cutting government spending

to see an improvement, or do you just continue spending more and more

to try and get out of the problems? It is a very mixed opinion among the

G7 chiefs. Thank you for having me on your programme today. I think

that all over the world, after the recession is coming very near, some

important countries are considering shifting from the austerity policy

to spending more. But the content of the spending is more of an issue on

the agenda behind the talk. The US Treasury Secretary, he has said that

all these G7 chiefs, what they need to do is use every tool that they've

got. One thing that many countries don't seem to have used, they have

spent a lot of money but they don't seem to have used structural policy

change. Basically they have reformed their economies from the ground up.

Yes, the so-called austerity cutting off the budget cannot work for the

present situation because of the deteriorating conditions of the

economy. The contents of spending is hidden. In my will, when democratic

governments were born in Japan and the US, the content of spending was

shifted a bit more to welfare proceeds like childhood allowances

and... So, more spending on humans and less spending on cement? We

appreciate your time. Thank you very much for joining us.

Let's return to our top global story now,

Whatever the cause of the disaster, and whether or not it was

terrorism-related, it could not come at a worse time for Egypt's tourism

Millions of Egyptians rely on tourism to make a living,

and it's a vital source of foreign earnings for the country.

Since the downing of the Russian Metrojet flight in Sinai

last October, tourist arrivals to Egypt had already plunged

Now there are predictions the struggling industry could be

Alan Bowen is Managing Partner at the travel

Good to see you. Thank you for coming in. We know that the plane

has gone, but even before yesterday's disaster tragedy at...

Egypt's tourist industry has been hammered. The board of Egypt's

tourist Council has said that the tourism hasn't dropped, it has

collapsed. That is the case. Schar milkshake has virtually been empty

for the last six months. Germany recently announced that they would

re- in-state flights to the area, and the United States should follow

suit next month. I suspect both of those will no longer happened at

Sharm el-Sheikh. There are currently not flights going into the area? How

long can a country that was relying on... The numbers vary, but the

money that the Egyptian government brought in, about 15% came from

tourism. If you look at the numbers, they have dropped... The average

number of nights in February has dropped 67%. That isn't

sustainable? It is not on a long-term basis. The Nile cruises,

the Luxor, in terms of real business Sharm el-Sheikh it was a relatively

popular and cheap destination. Airlines have decided that tourists

don't want to go there this year, they want to go to Spain and

Portugal which are absolutely full. The disaster in it it involves

Europe because it left from child at all. -- Charles de Gaulle. The

European share prices down, two operators fell yesterday. It is

having a big impact. It does have a huge impact. We don't even know the

cause it, but if it was a bomb, it may have been placed at Charles de

Gaulle Airport. It is much wider question and, will you go to Turkey?

People will be thinking, will we go to Paris on the weekend? Thank you

for your time. In other news: German drug

and chemical giant Bayer has confirmed it's launched takeover bid

for Monsanto, the world's biggest seed company, that could be worth

around $47 billion. The offer comes amid a wave

of consolidation in the industry, with rivals Dow Chemical,

DuPont and Syngenta all entering However, a tie-up between Bayer

and Monsanto could raise US competition concerns because of the

sheer size of the combined company and the control they would have over

the seeds and sprays business. Farmers groups have raised concerns

that such mergers could lead to Be back soon to take a look at some

of the newspapers from around the world -- I will be back.

Nearly a quarter of a million Vauxhall Zafiras,

are being recalled, for a second time, because of a problem