12/04/2017 World Business Report

Now for the latest financial news with Aaron Heslehurst

South Africas battered economy tries to recover from a double downgrade,

but it won't be easy - especially trying to borrow money

Yep, how a group of enterprising Berliners, fed up with paying ever

more for their daily train tickets clubbed together

We're going to take a ride with them.

Welcome to the programme. If you give me your eight minutes, I will

give you an exciting snapshot of the world of business and money. We will

start south, South Africa in that. As South Africa's president

Jacob Zuma celebrates his 75th birthday, festivities may be rather

more low key than usual. In less than a week,

the country's members of parliament are scheduled to hold a vote of no

confidence against the President. Well it comes after he ousted some

of his key political opponents Today, members of the public

are expected to take to the streets in protest of the move,

but Mr Zuma's decision also has South Africa has been downgraded

to "junk status" by two of the leading debt ratings

agencies - Fitch and S They argue that the reshuffle

will hamper the country's efforts The government's debt pile continues

to grow and the loss of its "investment grade" status

could have a significant impact on South Africa's ability to borrow

money on international markets. It means that major institutions

such as pension funds and hedge funds may be prevented

from buying the country's debt. on South Africa's ability to borrow

money on international markets. It means that major institutions

such as pension funds and hedge funds may be prevented

from buying the country's debt. Lesiba Mothata, Chief Economist

at Investment Solutions, South Africa, who joins

me from Johannesburg. Great have you on the programme.

Briefly, for people around the world watching us who don't normally

follow this sort of money news, camera just highlight how important

it is about this junk status. This makes it incredibly difficult and

very expensive for your country, South Africa, to service its

economy, basically, right? In need, because when you get downgraded to

junk in this way, what it normally ensues is higher interest on debt

and actually, we begin to even see a weaker economic outcome in the

environment in South Africa where we have found that private businesses

have not been invested back into the economy. In fact, a deep recession,

in terms of private investments and all of these things are going to

negatively impact of this confidence, negatively impact

consumer confidence and the country, we were expecting about 1.3% growth,

it is looking a bit more dire than what we would have seen before what

has ensued in the political realm. Talking of the political realm, what

is President Jacob Zuma doing? What is behind the reshuffle and is he to

blame? You know, a permitted leak on for the whole recall of the Finance

Minister from the international roadshow -- admittedly. We saw this

before, South Africa was on an negatively watched. They were

looking at other offenders including weak growth as part of the reason of

those downgrades but that this is actually created a situation where

they pulled the rug under the feet of South Africa in terms of ratings

as a result of these heightened political risks. You will meet the

new Finance Minister later on today. What are you hoping? Basically, the

question is, and you are a cheap economist so you would know, how you

turn that Africa around? -- South Africa. Well, it's a tough

environment and it requires what happened in 1998 West South Korea

made a declaration that there would be no bailout and they created a

situation that guarantees that state enterprises were reduced and they

made it clear that the growth economy would open up top foreign

investments. These are the things that are required. Admittedly, the

ideological is similar to what we would see out of South Korea. Good

luck with the meeting at later on today.

Hey, some good news for all those Chinese companies that make stuff

For the first time in 7mths - the price they pay for the raw

materials they need to make all that stuff -

Sharanjit Leyl is in our Asia Business Hub in Singapore.

Is it good news for the consumer, does it mean? Yes and no, Arryn.

What you talk of if the producer price index and as you say, calling

for the first time for seven months in March. It action the rose that

month from the year earlier but it's still incredibly the easing of the

previous month will be sorry gain of 7.8% and that was a nine-year high.

That is due to the massive rally we have seen in China's commodity

markets. There are measures to cool the country's overheated housing

market and that will slow a lot of demand for steel and the building

materials that you need to build big skyscrapers so, talking about the

consumer price inflation earlier, as I said, that was only up a little

and well within the bank's comfort zone. We have seen a lot of policy

makers continue to try to push the pace of money policy tightening.

Sharanjit Leyl, great to talk to you.

For decades, Deutsche Bahn has dominated Germany's

But one plucky Berlin start-up is taking on the corporate giant

with a single rival trainline, that runs once a day to Stuttgart -

launched via a crowd funding campaign.

Could others now follow suit Joe Miller reports.

A familiar sight in every German city. One of the larger's rail

operators, Deutsche Bahn, enjoys a near monopoly. That is being

challenged by the arrival of some enterprising Berliners. You're

started in December and until now, 70,000 customers have joined us on

board. Whistles financing over a crowd funding campaign where we

collect nearly 1 million euros. If you are looking to get from A to

B as quickly as possible, this is not the journey for you. It takes

more than six hours to get from Berlin to Stuttgart. But this is its

21st-century equivalent to the railway journey complete with a

beacon and organic bar. Not everyone is on board for the experience

alone. I played 22 euros to get here. It is a good price, I think.

The difference between the State Railway and this one is to around 15

minutes and not more. We want to run more than one chain. We are now

starting to prepare for a second train and a second line but I don't

know if they will be more competitors because it took a lot of

time to prepare everything. -- train. We will see. It may not be

full steam ahead just yet but if this start-up can keep a heavy pace,

others may follow in its tracks. Follow me on Twitter. I will be back

with James to take a look at some of the papers from around the world.

More than 50,000 disabled people have had specially adapted vehicles

taken away after the introduction of a new disability benefit.