10/04/2017 World Business Report

The foreign ministers of the world's seven biggest economies begin

to arrrive in Lucca, Italy, and free trade is high

We look at Singapore's efforts to regulate the airspace

If you got eight minutes, stay where you are, give me eight minutes and

I'll give you a fascinating snapshot of the world of business and money

but... We start in Italy where the foreign

ministers of the world's biggest economies meeting in

the historic city of Luca. This year Italy holds the presidency

of the G7 group and Rome has already made it clear that one of it's

priorities is fighting But hang on, why does it

matter to all of us? Well, it's important because the G7

accounts for just over 46% This meeting is

important because it's in preparation for next

month's leaders summit. Last month the host,

Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, laid out his G7 plan

by saying: to tackle is how they grow

their economies amidst a political The latest IMF forecasts show

reasonable growth this year for the US, Germany and the UK

with others struggling. Other topics on the

agenda include climate change, immigration

and energy security, in fact G7 energy ministers

are currently holding a seperate Athanasios Vamvakidis,

Global head of G10 FX Strategy Athanasios, thanks for coming on at

this for all our. This will be a very interesting meeting because

already Rex Tillerson is seen as hampering this year's gathering

because he hasn't hired the people the Secretary of State needs to get

the draft documents in place, where the US stands, the whole meeting

smells like there's a lack of trust. Indeed, this is an important meeting

although it's in preparation for the summit of the leaders, to a large

extent because there are many global challenges today and we don't really

know where the US stands. We used to take the US for granted about their

views on the world economy, geopolitics and their leadership

role in the G7 and G20. Now we don't really know what the US wants to

achieve using these groups and what are their views on the main

challenges the world is facing today. Do you think the foreign

ministers gathering before next month's leaders summit, do you think

they will go to the US and say what is your plan on energy and security

etc. Will they try and sniff out what the US thinks? It is likely and

the whole world will be watching, the US used to be the number one

country pushing for free trade. Now this is not the case any more.

Middle East, are we going to have more or less intervention and what

do we want to achieve? Will the US do it alone or use the G7 to achieve

consensus? Do these meetings move the markets up or down? Actually

not, it used to be important during the crisis, since then G7 and G20

meetings haven't achieved much. This time it could actually matter, it

could give us some insight on what is next in Syria, which would have

implications directly through oil prices and affecting risk sentiment.

Obviously where we're going in terms of international trade is very

important so markets actually will be watching this meeting much more

than in the past. I want to wrap this up, Athanasios, but I do wonder

if the G7 holds any weight any more, it is meant to be the seven biggest

economies in the world but where is India and China? They are meant to

be adults in the room but they are not always acting as adults and some

emerging markets, the kids, are now grown-ups. Athanasios, thanks for

joining us. I thought Heslehurst was tough enough! I'm just playing, he

is a regular with us! Which makes you wonder why I can't I can't get

his name right! The operator of Hong Kong's gold

exchange is in talks with Myanmar to help the government there set up

a similar exchange in that country. Sharanjit Leyl, who knows a thing

or two about precious metals, What is going on? That's right,

they're helping Myanmar set up this exchange mainly because they're huge

growth prospects, it is a bit of a frontier town, it has just opened up

in recent years, and also it's a prime location, along the route of

China's one belt, one road, which makes it an attractive spot to catch

the commodities trade in the region. That is all the view of the

president of the Chinese gold and silver exchange Society, a

century-old Hong Kong Boras, who are the folks advising the Myanmar on

this venture. We know this was initiated by the Chinese in 2013 to

establish trade and infrastructure projects, including roads and

railway links to connect the 60 countries between China and other

Asian and European countries, all of this to promote trade and the

economy and Myanmar is among these countries. Chinese investments,

especially in energy and infrastructure, are growing and the

economy is likely to expand a whopping 8.1% in 2016, that's

according to a forecast by the IMF. It makes the country full of growth

prospects. In fact, it's the world's fastest-growing economy after Iraq.

Thanks very much for that, we will talk to you very soon. Sharanjit

Leyl from Singapore. Talking of Singapore, let's stay there...

The sky's the limit for the number of drones expected to hit

Singapore's airspace in the next ten years.

But the heavy traffic will present some real dangers.

To prevent crashes, experts at Nanyang Technological University

and the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore are working on a system

of air lanes to keep drones on a safe path.

There is a need for a system that can govern and regulate the safe and

efficient operations of groans. But we also know that the government

agencies are looking at more usage of groans, operations which are

dull, dirty and dangerous. These are the types of work which would be

best done by a robot or by a drone. If you want to inspect a chimney for

instance, you wouldn't want to send someone up and down the chimney, you

would probably just send a drone to do an inspection.

The reason now you don't see many drones flying in a big area, and

also especially in urban areas, is because safety is something that you

must take care of. For Singapore, many people may not

realise that the urban airspace is actually finite and limited. There

are other airspace users, from the military and air force and so on.

There's a need to structure the airspace and divide it and the key

technology traffic management. There is a way to fence a virtual

wall around an area, because we don't want to allow any drones to

enter in that area. This would require the technology that supports

the surveillance of where they are, it knows its position is well enough

so that if a particular area is G of fenced then this information can be

uploaded. -- geofenced. Jazzy music! Follow me on Twitter. I

will be back with Chris to look at the newspapers from all around the

world. Stay tuned for that, see you very shortly. Bye-bye.