20/07/2017 World Business Report

Now it's time for World Business Report.

"Widespread, damaging and pervasive" -

the impact on Britain if Brexit talks fail,

So as they reach the end of round two -

But for millions of working parents, the big question: who cares?

We look at the growing problem and soaring costs

In a moment China hails significant progress in trade

talks with the US despite cancelled news conferences.

we start in Brussels, where the UK's Brexit Secretary,

David Davis, and the EU's chief negotiator,

Michel Barnier, will wrap up their second round of talks

They are expected to give a progress report at a press conference later.

They've been focusing on three areas:

the so-called divorce bill Britain will have to pay,

and the border between Northern Ireland and the Irish

The EU says negotiations on the future trading relationship

There's huge pressure to reach an agreement.

According to an independent report released this morning,

the impact on the UK of no deal would be "widespread,

It warns of potential chaos over customs

checks, British airlines being unable to fly,

and UK nuclear power plants - which are regulated by Euratom -

It also warns there would be a further fall in the value

of sterling - pushing up inflation - and hitting wages and consumer

But is UK business prepared for that scenario?

Britain's corporate lobby group, the Institute of Directors,

says while many firms in the UK are looking at contingency plans,

very few - only 11% - have started to put those

Meanwhile German Chancellor Angela Merkel told business leaders

earlier this week that Brexit shouldn't become a distraction

TRANSLATION: We will intensively deal with the Brexit negotiation but

we want to continue a good relationship with Britain but we

must not under all circumstances concentrate on these negotiations

but rather the 27 states must deal with their future.

Professor Jonathan Portes is from the School of Politics

Are you expecting any concrete progress? I do not think so. Those

sides will save we are getting down to business and talking and getting

into the details and making progress but equally there will be no

explosions. Not yet, anyway. There have been photographs of David Davis

at the table with his EU negotiators, no paperwork. They have

a stack of that but criticism that perhaps the UK have got into these

talks without much detail finalised and not knowing exactly what they

are trying to negotiate. To be fair, the UK civil servant have prepared

huge paperwork. It is a strategy shared by the UK government at the

political level. What the EU is finding rather frustrating is they

are not sure what the UK government actually wants. There is no coherent

strategy, no vision coming from the UK of what the UK, at a political

level, want after Brexit. Do you think there is frustration that

people that supported Brexit because of the right huge opportunities

outside of the EU but there is no coherent policy or strategy put

forward yet? We have two possible slightly different divisions. Both

are plausible but you have to decide on one. One is we continue to

maintain the current economic relationship with the EU- staying in

the single market for at least an extended transitional period and

maintain that economic relationship. That is one vision Phillip Hammond

and it others share. The other is a clean break and then to pursue a new

global Britain agenda of rushing as quickly as we can to do trade with

the US and so on. That is another vision but different people in

government have different views and until we make that decision, it is

hard to see how we go forward. Until traders can be discussed, we have to

have some decision on the border between Northern Ireland and

Ireland. Is that going to be a sticking point? I do not think it is

a sticking point in the sense that the EU want one thing and the Irish

want another - everybody wants to solve the problem. The problem is,

nobody actually knows what the answer is stopped after Brexit there

will be a new order that did not exist before between the European

Union and the UK so how do you avoid making it a hard border if we are

not going to be part of the customs union and the single market. The

question is how do you avoid that fundamental problem. Thank you for

talking to us. It's the time of year when millions

of schoolchildren begin to break up And for working parents -

the big question of who is going All across BBC News today,

we're looking at the pressure of childcare for families

around the world. And how businesses are

responding to the challenge. Samira Hussain reports from the US,

where for many kids, Yellow school buses on the streets

of Manhattan in the summer to not mean the school but it means camp.

Although some dread the 45 minute bus ride, the destination is an

idyllic summer experience for city kids. This private day spans 50

acres and campers do a range of activities, from zip lining to

making a delicacy. There are hundreds of camps like these running

in New York State all summer but they are not cheap. Camps can be

anywhere from $500 a week to thousand dollars a week. Certainly

there are local camps that can be less. Camps like these are the kids,

especially those that live in the city, and they offer a unique

experience but they can be expensive for parents. They are finding into

the classroom to make beads fought necklaces. It is just one of the

many activities offered by the Brooklyn children's Museum daycare

programme and it comes at no cost to parents. As a result, the wait list

is double that of the number of campers they can accommodate. Some

parents have the means to afford an expose of their child to certain

experiences, others don't and some parents rely on this programme to

help them make ends meet. Some parents to not have the resources to

pay thousands of dollars for summer programmes. As many parents know,

children are pricey proposition all year round. When it comes to child

care over the summer, your offers a defined by your means.

And a reminder, we'll be looking at the cost of childcare

across the BBC today - online and via social media -

follow the conversation at #Childcare

On the website you can find my personal report about how I have

been coping. In the last hour or so China has

said it has made "significant progress" on a 100-day action plan

for trade with the US - and discussed a one-year plan

on economic cooperation. The Chinese embassy in Washington

made the comments after the annual economic dialogue between the two

sides ended on Wednesday China's huge dominance in trade

between the two has of course been a major issue for the

Trump administration Our Asia business team has been

following this story - What do you make of these cancelled

news conferences? I think it is there to say the language the

Chinese Embassy and the US used in the comments you mentioned is rather

careful but the fact that they cancelled the press conference where

reporters could have asked questions and it did not even released a joint

statement, that may imply they had quite a lot of disagreements and, to

be fair, there were many issues they could not come to an agreement with.

A huge trade deficit that America has with China has been one of the

key election promises. It reached some $350 billion last year and it

appears they could not come to an agreement on that. The other major

sticking point has been steel import. The US has repeatedly

accused China of flooding the market and driving the prices are down. The

Trump administration even threatened to impose tariffs or quotas which

some analysts were concerned could lead to a trade war between the two

countries. The Chinese side has been saying they are still having a

dialogue, no confrontation, but it seems they could not come to an

agreement ensuring it is dialogue. -- during this dialogue.