27/05/2016 World Business Report

Now it is time for World Business Report .

But after years of weak growth and a jobless rate more than double

is France getting the medicine it needs?

G7 leaders call the world economy an "urgent priority",

but fail to agree on co-ordinated steps to head off a crisis.

This is a fascinating and exciting snapshot of all the views in the

world of business and money. We also have some tough times for China's

biggest maker of PCs, Lenovo. Starting in France, where

pressure is mounting on the government as that Wavell strike

hits the country hard. The cause is

a controversial shake-up of labour rules aimed at making it easier and

cheaper to hire and fire workers. Labour unions are

fiercely opposed to it. But its supporters say it is vital

to make French business more competitive and energise

the country's stagnant economy. Let me give you some

background to this. France's unemployment rate is over

10%, Proof, say critics,

that the system needs reform. Then there is France's

economic growth. This graph shows how persistently

weak it has been The IMF says growth will improve

a bit this year. But it warns that the government's

reforms don't go far enough Our business correspondent

Jonty Bloom has been to Toulouse to find out why these reforms are

so controversial. Burning tyres and blocked roads

brought traffic chaos to parts of France and that was just the start.

It campaigners also hit electricity production and the rail network. The

blockade of all refineries is causing more queues at petrol

stations, especially in the north of France. While in town squares across

the country protests have been held every night for weeks. This is the

capital, the town hall in Toulouse. As you can see they are looking

forward to the Euros. But this protest goes on every night against

the labour reforms that the French government is proposing. We have

flags, food stalls and just here, about half-an-hour ago, there was a

large group of people about half-an-hour ago, there was a

large group of people having a discussion. All of a sudden they

stormed this it on the right of the town hall. -- this bit.

The protesters targeted the opera because they say it is just for the

rich, like this labour laws. And some trade unionists hate the

reforms as well. They say no discussion. That's why we are going

to struggle against it. Anyway, it isn't a question of negotiation. We

have to destroy this project. This is of course sees things

differently. This warehouse distributes haircare products to

salons across France. That could soon be hit by fuel shortages and

roadblocks. Action the company's Ohno believes are politically

driven. Andy says there is one reason there can be no compromise.

TRANSLATION: We are in France and I think that unfortunately we still

live on year of class struggles, most likely kept alive by a far

right ideals -- ideology that is prevalent in some areas of France.

That's why we have these blockades. Anything done to help this as is

seen as a gift to chief executives and where the interests of employers

are always seen as opposed to those of employees. On the surface life in

front is as pleasant as ever but unemployment is over 10% and much

higher for the young. Successive governments have tried to force

through reforms and fail. This time neither side seems willing to

compromise. We are also in Japan,

where leaders of the G7 group of industrialised countries are

wrapping up two days of talks in In their final statement

the leaders have said "global growth But they have failed to agree

on practical steps. Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe

has been trying to get his fellow leaders to boost government spending

to kick-start the global economy. Mr Abe has been making comparisons

with the 2008 financial crisis But he's failed to get agreement

for a co-ordinated spending spree, with Germany and the UK sticking

firmly to the path of austerity. Asia Business Correspondent Karishma

Vaswani is at the G7 summit in It looked like you were in a skating

ring for a second! We all know, you and I said it yesterday, that

globally things are getting worse, not better. We note International

Monetary Fund has changed what it thinks the global economy will grow

by. The Japanese Prime Minister thinks there could be another crisis

around the corner. Here is the question. Why is it so hard for

leaders to come up with a unified approach to prevent all of that

happening? Well, it is pretty simple. They have different opinions

as to how they can go about fixing the problems in the world economy.

They couldn't come to an agreement because frankly they don't believe

in the same thing. You've got the UK and Germany saying they want fiscal

austerity, you have to be the structural reforms taking place, and

then you've got Japan, the likes of Canada, saying they need time to

sort this out. So it would be good if we could have a bit more of a

concerted effort to say that stimulus is the way to go to fix the

economies. They didn't do that and in fact the communique they had was

law and compensated. They basically say in a roundabout fashion that

each country should go about fixing the problems in its own individual

economy using flexible fiscal strategies. So basically it is up to

you. Each country decides how they go about fixing the problems in

there own economy. Quickly, it highlights Japan's situation, but

also for viewers around the world Mr Abe wanted to print more money and

get these countries to spend more money because there's more money the

American and European, which means they will buy more from Japan. It is

just that. He was also trying to build credibility here at home. But

if everybody in the G7 says fiscal stimulus is a great idea, he can

then say the critics in Japan that they have to put off the national

sales tax that they are planning to implement in 2017 and a have to

continue using the arrows of Abenomics, the plane he has in

Japan, which would include fiscal stimulus. He didn't get that so it

will be hard for him to convince critics back home. Indeed. We will

come back to you and talk to you soon. Thank you.

Let's stay in Asia now, where Chinese tech giant Lenovo is having

It has revealed a steep fall in revenues as, we all know,

the market for personal computers continues to flag.

But it's also having problems with smartphones.

Rico Hizon is following the story for us in Singapore.

Good to see you! I was looking at some numbers. Here is the problem

for Lenovo, the world's against PC makers. In the first three months of

this year global sales of PCs was 64 million. The same time last year it

was 76 million. People are buying fewer. Absolutely. We are seeing the

core businesses of Lenovo continuing to hurt smart phones, personal

computers. The smartphone struggle to keep pace with the likes of Apple

and other rivals in the market. Revenue from PC sales, which

accounts for much of its business, was down 11%. It has been impacted

by currency fluctuations and slumping demand in China and

overseas. As for the cellphones, one analyst said the company was failing

to snatch customers from competitors and said customers would pick Apple

or Samsung and if they want to buy a cheap cellphone they would rather

pick something else over Lenovo. So Lenovo reported a 128 million

dollars net loss for the year and that is compared to a net profit of

more than $800 million over the same period last year. On Lenovo watcher

says they haven't really done very well in China, but other brand names

are to much better. They have also announced cost-cutting measures.

Hopefully with these cutbacks and a restructuring of the business they

will be back in the black this new financial year. We will have to wait

and see. Thank you. I will wrap it up. Follow me on Twitter. Stage ten.

I will be back to take a look at some of the newspapers from around

the world. The criminal justice system is close

to breaking point according to a damning report from the

Public Accounts Committee. It finds the system plagued

by delays and inefficiencies