01/06/2016 World Business Report

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

Brazil is releasing its latest growth figures later,

and they're expected to show that the country's struggling economy is

So, can planned economic reforms end Brazil's worst recession

And could there be relief for Japanese consumers? Prime Minister

Shinzo Abe is poised to delay another rise in the sales tax.

Coming up: is Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe

giving up on fiscal reform by postponing a sales tax rise?

Brazil is releasing its latest economic figures later, which

will probably show that one of the world's largest emerging economies

Brazil's economy shrank by 3.8% last year and a similar

Last month President Dilma Rousseff was suspended from office, she is

awaiting trial for charges of doctoring government accounts.

A new temporary government has been trying to implement policy changes

But the country's new acting president Michel Temer certainly has

his work cut out, as Daniel Gallas reports from Sao Paulo.

He smiles a lot and tries to project confidence, but it is clear that

Rizal's acting president has tough days ahead of him. In his first

visit to Congress to propose economic reforms, angry politicians

accused him of staging a coup. These are some of those who will get to

vote on his plans. He assembled a team of well-known executives to get

Brazil out of its worse recession in decades. Brazil needs to make

savings of about $50 billion per year, so Michel Temer wants to open

up the oil sector to foreign firms and make it less reliant on

government investment. He also wants a law that limits government

spending, and wants pension reforms that make resilience work longer and

retire later. Consumers and investors don't believe Brazil will

be able in the long run to pay off its debt without printing more

money, which would cause inflation, which is why fewer people are

willing to invest in this economy. To change that, the government needs

to show it is committed to making deep cuts in its budget. That may

not so easy right now. This economist says it will take years

for Brazil to fix its problems and there is no guarantee these reforms

will be seen through until the end. We don't know if we are going to win

the elections in 2018, and if this new president will continue the

adjustments that Michel Temer is trying to implement. It will be even

harder to get support from the streets. Brazil's largest trade

union, representing 20 million workers, says it will not accept

anything coming from a government that they accused of plotting a coup

to seize power. The leader says his union will stage many more protests

like this. Workers are the ones who are really affected, they want to

end our pension system, just like what happened in Greece. Michel

Temer may try to ride out the protests, but even if he gets his

way in the end it is still far from clear whether his reforms will be

enough to get Rizal growing again. -- Brazil.

And from reforms in Brasil, to reforms in Japan, where

in a few hours time, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is

expected to announce a delay to a planned sales-tax increase.

The sales tax is one of the key planks of Mr Abe's promised

reforms, aimed at kick-starting his country's ailing economy.

Harumi Taguchi, Priciple Economist at IHS Economics

Is he right to delay, if that is indeed what he does later? Could you

please repeat the question. Would Shinzo Abe the right if he decides

to delay the sales tax? From my point of view, he should increase

the tax as planned, however, recently he decided to delay attacks

increase. Because of economic weakness. The government has decided

to implement 788 billion yen stimulus plans to support the

government after the earthquake. However, the downsizing of the

economy and the stronger yen on top of that earthquake disaster, has

increased the downside risks to weaken the Japanese economy. You say

you think he should go ahead with the sales tax increase, but the last

time the sales tax went up it hit growth. Yes, actually, the impact of

the last tax increase was more than we expected. But in terms of

consumer spending, declining after the tax increase, is about the same

impact after the 1970s -- 1997 tax increase. The prolonged weakness is

caused by the rate increase, it is not from the consumer tax increase.

Thank you very much, good to have you with us.

Japanese telecommunications giant SoftBank have said it will sell

at least $7.9bn of its shares in Chinese ecommerce company Alibaba.

SoftBank is the major shareholder in Alibaba,

and its stake will fall to about 28% of the Chinese firm.

Softbank shares climbed 3.5% on the news to a near 6-month high.

The unemployment rate in the eurozone held steady in April

Within the bloc the highest rates were in Greece

and Spain, both of which saw unemployment rates of over 20%.

Inflation meanwhile remained negative for a fourth consecutive

It highlights the struggle facing policy makers to stoke spending

France faces another week of disruption

as unions continue their protests against planned labour reforms.

Railway workers begin a strike today, which is expected to further

disrupt a transport network already suffering from a shortage of fuel.

Staff on the Paris metro begin indefinite action on Thursday,

while Air France pilots have also voted to go on strike over pay.

Australia's economy grew at a better-than-expected 1.1%

in the first quarter of 2016, compared to the previous quarter,

boosted by exports and a rise in household spending.

Very impressive numbers, you have 3.1% growth year on year, expansion

quarter on quarter. Boosted by exploits in household goods. That is

along with finance and retail trade industries. I'm going to say this is

a big relief for the government as the economy has been rebalancing

after struggling since the mining boom, mainly due from the slowdown

in demand from China. As a result, the Australian government gaining by

half a percent, and economists are saying this should reduce the need

for further interest-rate cuts forward. Australians will be going

to the polls on the second of July, and analysts say the government will

indeed be putting the best possible spin on it.

Let's look at the markets. The Asian markets still in negative