08/08/2017 World Business Report

overthrew the government three years ago.

Now it's time for World Business Report.

Could a vote by secret ballot oust South Africa's president,

We talk you through what's at stake.

Plus formula milk is big business in Hong Kong.

We assess the obstacles there to breast-feeding.

China's appetite for stout beer is soaring.

faces another vote of no confidence in parliament.

This time it will be a secret ballot.

Mr Zuma has been under constant pressure over everything

from corruption allegations to a controversial cabinet reshuffle

that saw his widely respected finance minister, Pravin Gordhan,

That prompted two credit rating agencies, Standard Poor's

and Fitch, to downgrade South Africa's credit worthiness

to junk, hugely increasing borrowing costs.

And in June, the economy, once the continent's largest,

fell into a second recession in a decade.

Figures out yesterday show the country's unemployment rate

remained unchanged at close to 28% in the second quarter.

That's about five million more than in 2009.

With me is William Attwell, senior analyst, Sub-Saharan Africa

Nice to see you again, William. Thanks for having me on. What do you

think will be the outcome of this boat? He is known as the great

survivor. Will he survive again? Yes, so essentially Jacob Zuma is

fairly safe actually. He has had nine votes of no confidence before

and survived all of them. This is of course different with the secret

ballot, which the opposition says would protect those ANC MPs who

might vote against him. Certainly there are several MPs who've come

out very publicly, saying they would vote with the opposition, but

ultimately, within the party, the majority of the MPs, the opposition

would need 50 to vote with them, but they are not going to get those

numbers, simply because of those MPs fearing a backlash through some sort

of internal investigation later. So what will finally toppled Jacob Zuma

then? I know he is stepping down as head of the ANC in September this

year, but he remains president in theory since 2019. I suppose Zexit,

as you could call it, will happen. It's a matter of when rather than

if. Till 2019, he will hope to stay in power by having his former wife

the head of the party, which he hopes will protect him, perhaps

allow him to stay on Npower little longer, and hopefully avoid

prosecution in his eyes. In the meantime, what will happen to the

South African economy? It's taken quite a heavy hit. We mentioned the

event, Pravid Gordan being shuffled out of his position. You mentioned

the rand, just after the secret ballot was announced, it increased

2% against the dollar. Essentially any meaningful reforms that can

improve the economic situation, we are forecasting considerably less

than 1% growth this year. Basically all reforms that would help redress

the situation are off the table. Internal politicking will dominate

the headlines for the next five months. Thank you very much. Of

course we will give you the outcome of that secret ballot as an when it

happens in South Africa. Apparently it is now eclipsing

the American market. Rico Hizon is in our

Asia Business Hub in Singapore. So nice to have you back.

You've been missed. Great to be back! It's a lovefest here...

Goodness me. Chinese drinkers will consume more than 216 million litres

of stout beer this year, and that number will surpass the United

States as the top market for this dark brew worldwide, and this is

according to the latest report from Euromonitor International. For our

viewers who don't know what stout beer is, it's a dark beer using

roasted malts, barley, hops, water and yeast, so American drinkers had

previously taken the crown from the British in 2013, but now both

markets are just growing at a fraction of the pace in China, where

brewers such as Diageo and Guinness have benefited from growth of more

than tenfold over the last four years, so they are projecting

Chinese demand will more than double to around 660 million litres by

2021. I'm not a beer drinker, Sally, so for all stout beer drinkers,

well, this is good news. That's a heck of a lot of beer, I

have to say! It's good for the manufacturers...

Thank you. And now it's time for the next

instalment Today we focus on the great debate

about breast-feeding In Hong Kong formula is proving

to be a lucrative business and breast-feeding rates are among

the lowest in the world. Juliana Liu has been

finding out why. Sometimes, professional assistance

is needed to help a new man achieve that perfect latch. Yes. Lactation

consultant Christine Lam has been teaching breast-feeding for 20

years. It's still an uphill battle. Quite a lot of mothers in hospital.

The breast-feeding rate on discharge is very high that when they go home

it will drop. Nearly all mothers are breast-feeding on discharge from

hospital in Hong Kong but that rate falls to a third when their babies

are four months old, one of the lowest rates in the world. Locally,

this is the average for babies under six months old. One of the reasons

for the low rates in Hong Kong is the ubiquitous advertising

artificial baby milk. Two years ago, formula makers spent $370 million on

advertising, nearly as much as the Health Department spent on disease

prevention for all ages, according to a group funded by UNICEF. That

amount is set to fall after the official launch this summer on a

voluntary code that restrict the marketing of infant formula. The

city's top health official says the goal is to protect breast-feeding.

And, if there are problems in running this code, using this

voluntary nature, then obviously we would consider whether or not that

legislation should be in place. New man Sheena Shen uses the guidelines.

She is breast-feeding her one-month-old baby but admits

continuing will be a challenge. It's difficult to breastfeed as a mother

because of short maternity leave. It's just ten weeks and I had to

work six weeks after birth. At a pro breast-feeding event, mothers here

agree that short maternity leave a long working hours and a lack of

sleep are all obstacles. They say the government guidelines will help

but, on their own, they are far from enough.

Do you think it is fair that formula milk brands

The Google employee who wrote a memo critical of the firm's diversity

initiatives has been fired from the company.

A male software engineer argued the lack of women in top tech jobs

was due to biological differences between men and women.

Google's chief executive responded by saying the contents of the memo

However, portions of the memo crossed the line.

The world's biggest hotel chain will partner with Alibaba to tap

into the growing number of Chinese tourists.

Marriott International says the joint venture will allow Chinese

travellers to book rooms using Alibaba's travel website.

They'll also be able to pay for their hotel bookings

Chinese travellers are expected to take roughly 700 million trips

Tesla plans to raise $1.5 billion to pay for production

By the sounds of it, many will be drinking stout beer on their

holidays as well! Let's look at the markets:

Basically, these markets have been going up, up and up, so no

surprises, a slight fall in Asia today, but look at the Dow, going

higher and higher again. I'll see you again very soon.