16/08/2017 World Business Report

Now it's time for World Business Report.

The UK government says there'll be no return to a hard

Later today, the US, Canada and Mexico will sit down

to renegotiate the NAFTA free trade agreement.

The British Government has unveiled its second Brexit position

paper, ahead of the third round of negotiations planned

in Brussels at the end of this month.

This time, it's about minimising disruption at the Irish border.

Under one option the government has proposed, there'd be no customs

border at all between the UK and Ireland.

This would enable goods to flow freely between

-- The paper also highlights protecting

the Common Travel Area and associated rights for UK

Thanks to the current arrangement, people can move freely

between Northern Ireland, the Republic and the rest of the UK

The Centre for Cross Border Studies estimates

that up to 30,000 people cross the border every day for work.

And according to the Central Statistics Office,

the value of Ireland's exports to Britain has grown by 14%

Joining us now is Professor Lee McGowan from Queen's University

Good to see you. So who is set to benefit most from the maintaining of

this current border you like. Everyone is going to benefit from

the current situation if it is allowed to continue but this is

really a very contentious issue. What happens with the border. The

government has set out its position. It has been welcomed by the Irish

government in Northern Ireland. It gives that certainty. The problem

is, were as Northern Ireland two or three years down the line? The

government is seeking, it knows it is so contentious, it needs to find

some sort of compromise consensus that reaches out to the two main

communities in Northern Ireland in economic and political terms. Who

gets the final say. Is it in the domestic governance sphere or is it

up to the European Union officials? Everyone is going to be involved in

this one. The Irish government will be there as part of the EU 27 and

the other members will be sitting alongside Ireland. What we do know

is there is goodwill for this situation in terms of what is the

border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. We saw that

in the publications by the European Council, the commission and the

Parliament. The goodwill is actually there. Can it be secured?

Economically, how important is it to have a border without friction?

Everyone wanted that frictionless border. We've seen since the Good

Friday Agreement, it will be next year. There is more trade between

Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Also to the Irish

government, the issue of the East-West relationship. Mostly the

trade goes through GB and to the continent. The Northern Ireland and

the Republic of Ireland, many of these sectors are actually based in

Ireland. If we look at agriculture, a lot of milk produced in Northern

Ireland is then sent south on the border to be protest in most of that

comes north again. It will be sold in Northern Ireland or sent to the

UK. So this issue of the border in the real tricky thing is where will

the government be when it gets the special customs agreement. What is

certainly clear is, there has to be some form of checks. There will be

some sort of check of the border and that's when it becomes costly or

more costly to businesses but also politically divisive and

problematic. Thank you very much indeed.

Today, representatives from Canada, the United States and Mexico

will begin to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement-

For US timber workers, the trade pact has long been

There is a lot of uncertainty. Nobody knows how will go. A lot of

talk about free trade and fair trade. We need fair trade. Money may

not grow on trees but softwood lumber is a billion-dollar business.

Canada and the United States have been arguing over the industry for

decades. So what is softwood lumber? It's a kind of wood that comes from

softwood trees, obviously. Trees like cedar, pine and spruce. It is

primarily used to build houses. Why is this important? Softwood lumber

is big business. In 2014, the softwood lumber industry contributed

$21.2 billion to the Canadian economy. And more than 350,000

people work in the industry in the US. They are good paying jobs. We

are not investing elsewhere. It's all money being put back into the

community and it helps make a community lived and to be vibrant

and survive. What is the problem? Because it is subsidised and because

they have advantages we don't have and we are competing, we can't

compete against a government and against subsidies. We need fair

trade. For years the US has said the Canadian government is unfairly

subsidising its lumber industry and Canada denies this so both sides

took their arguments to a Nafta panel created to hear these kinds of

complaints and repeatedly the Americans lost. So now the US wants

to get rid of the panels all together and find another way to

resolve conflicts. Not so fast. The Canadians said they will quit the

Nafta talks if these panels go. So what now? Renegotiations will be

testy and take time and these panels will be a sticking point. Mexico

says it wants them to stay and even if the Americans get their way, they

will still need to find a way to settle arguments that make up in the

future. If one thing is clear, friends disagree.

The International Monetary Fund has warned that China's credit growth

The IMF says that without the boom in lending, China's recent rate

of economic growth would have been significantly slower.

Let's get more on this with Rico Hizon in Singapore.

It is a double-edged sword with Beijing on the step path. It

tolerated a rapid increase in debt -- get in order to increase targets

between 2010 and 2020 and since the Global Financial Crisis, China's

economic growth has slowed from 10% a year in the previous three decades

to a rate of 6.7% in 2016 but China has also been trying to manage this

transition to slower growth with a different pattern, one that is less

dependent on industry and exports and has a greater role for consumer

spending at home and service industries. This IMF report says the

slowdown would have been more pronounced were it not for a boom in

credit. It suggests over the years, 2012- 2016, a more sustainable

pattern of debt and credit would have led economic growth that was

lower by at least two percentage points and the biggest single group

of debtors are the state-owned enterprises, although there have

been large increases in deaths by the government. Some economists say

this problem has to be fixed very soon. If not, this could lead to a

serious debt crisis for the mainland economy. Water warning.

Donald Trump has hit out at the business leaders who have

stood down from his manufacturing council in the last couple of days.

So far six high profile figures, including the bosses of Intel,

Merck and Under Armour, have left Mr Trump's panel

in protest of the President's response to the rally held by far

right wing groups in Charlottesville, Virginia.

At a press conference Mr Trump said the CEOs in question were not

Tokyo stocks were flat on Wednesday following gains the previous day

with strong US data propping up investor confidence

Also - an easing of the US-North Korea tensions.

Investors have cashed out of safe haven assets,

like gold and the Japanese yen, and ploughed back into riskier

assets like equities, with the US dollar also gaining

A hospital trust at the centre of an inquiry into the avoidable

deaths of several new born babies, has been criticised for failing

to learn the lessons of past mistakes.