we will start—ups in india. we will have the latest. hello and welcome to asia business report. i'm steve lai. let's begin in the us, the world's number one economy grew at a better—than—expected pace last year, led by strong consumer spending, which drove stock markets to new highs. s&p 500 logged its fifth—straight record close. michelle fleury has more from new york. for an economy many said was headed for recession, the us continues to defy expectations. in the final three months of last year, the american economy grew faster than expected, expanding at an annual rate of 3.3% while inflation fell. growth for the entire year also accelerated, even as the federal reserve was engaged in the most aggressive rate height cycle in years.

biden administration ceased on the moment. here is the president in the battleground state of wisconsin. economic growth is stronger than we had during the trump administration. thanks to the american people, america now is at its strongest growth and lowest inflation rate of any economy in the world. all this week, joe biden�*s advisors have been on the road with the message that the president's strategy to help the middle class is working. on wednesday, the president picked up a major endorsement from the united auto workers. donald trump is a scab! cheers here is the thing, with trump trouncing biden in polling but the economy at the end of last year the white house is trying to change the narrative. pouncing on the latest gdp data to help make its case. overnight, oil prices havejumped to highest

levels this year. as you can see, they are up about 3% as tensions in the red sea continue to disrupt global trade. financial survey alliance has forecast that if the crisis continues for several months, global inflation could be pushed up by half a percentage point 5.1%. that is partly because taking the longer route costs freight carriers five times more than going through the suez canal. ...told us at this crisis compares to the covert disruption. what we see is the price increase of october around 850% on top of the very low rates that we saw that decreased over covid and $50,000 per container from what are you advising clients to do? yes, on one hanc, keeping track of stocks. improving production planning and adjusting it to the past and extended leadtimes we are currently seeing. roughly 2—3 weeks that the journey is extended

through the way, across africa. but how do you see this playing out? it is incredibly hard to predict, i appreciate going forward, given the unpredictable nature of what's been happening in the red sea? we are expecting a further increase of rates, at least until chinese new year and then it will pretty much stay on that level or even decrease slightly. what you make of the pressure from the international community to ensure safety of shipping in the red sea, particularly from china? an interesting element. china invested quite a bit into the one road initiative in the past years and obviously they are quite keen to keep up trade across the suez canal into europe and into all the other markets they are serving. so there will be quite a bit of pressure from the chinese government in the background in order to secure that rate. in other news, making headlines, from march people in the eu using apple devices

will be able to download from rivals and notjust apple, as is currently the case. it comes after the eu introduce new rules to encourage competition represents a major u—turn. apple has always insisted it's vetting process limit levi strauss as it will cut as much as 50% of its global workforce to rein in costs. its executive said the layoffs were aimed at producing a leaner company. it comes as sales and profits outlook missed wall street's expectation. before delivery giant sweetie and flip card are the latest according to reports. our india business correspondence choices from mumbai. what has led to this? a number of factors including cost—cutting measures

including cost—cutting measures in many of these companies are taking as they plan their initial public offerings late initial public offerings late in the year. also, a bit of a start—up funding winter that has set up here in india post pandemic. sweetie as you pointed out has laid off about 300 people. flip card has let go of nearly a thousand. i reached out to both company. sweetie has refused to comment but flip card said this was part of their annual restructuring and performance reviews of employees rather than any particular comment on their business. but really this is part of a broader malaise right now in india's start—ups, which have seen about 15,000 layoffs since 2023, according to one report that i read. this is on account of a number of factors, including a funding crunch. the fact that profitability has been elusive for many of them and the operating environment has been tough poster pandemic, which

has meant that businesses continue to remain quite slow for many of them.— for many of them. thank you very much — for many of them. thank you very much for— for many of them. thank you very much for that. - chances are if you work in an office, you are probably there a few times a week. many companies, particularly those who went fully remote during the pandemic a few years ago, are trying to get employees back into the office more regularly. lewis garrard from the consultancy mercer told me how the trend will affect employees and job prospects. the kind of work you do really matters. the data suggest that, from the economists who are researching this, that fully remote work is less productive than being around your colleagues in person. only slightly, just a few percentage points, but that disappears when you are in the office a few days a week. so you can form those relationships and perhaps get that little buzz that you get from being around others. that will probably be the status quo.

but frankly, steve, in recent times we have started to move past this trend and start to ask ourselves a bit more bigger questions as you have mentioned, the rise of generative ai and some of these other things are really starting to be on the minds of workers these days. we were talking earlier in the programme about challenges to the global supply chain. during the pandemic thousands of truck driver stopped work and many never came back. my colleague alan hassell has asked the president of of scania about the problem. and whether the answer is building new infrastructure for electric vehicles. this is the problem, and you might think it is a problem in the uk or europe, it is a global problem. wherever i go, whether brazil, or china, we hear the same thing. young people simply don't want to become truck drivers. this could be a huge problem for the global logistical

system. trucks are some kind of bloodstream of society. if trucks are not moving we will not have food on the shelves in our stores, injust a number of hours or perhaps days. so this we need to address and we are trying to do our best as a vehicle manufacturer to create an attractive vehicle with an attractive appealing and ergonomic workspace, with a good bed, good infotainment system. so that at least life in the cab can be made really attractive. i think we need to go beyond that. this is a systems issue. we need to look into drivetimes. we need to look into giving younger people opportunity to return to base and sleep in their own bed when they com home. not many people think about that but land transport is dominating global trade. it depends on country again but you have around 60— 70% of transport

being on that and usually it is the flexible part up to the last mile. but you have markets where 90%— japan is a good example, injapan 90% of transport is done on trucks. if that does not work, if there is a shortage of drivers, there is a shortage of truck hauling capacity, the entire global trade will be put in danger. this is a tremendously important. what about this? as we are building the infrastructure for electrification is that the opportunity to build better infrastructure that makes truck driving more appealing? i think you're onto something very important. probably they can combine. truck stops are not very important most of them today. as you need to rebuild and build out spaces where 20, 30, maybe 50 trucks can stop at the same time to charge, it is a great opportunity to also create an infrastructure around that with possibilities to rest, with food, possibilities to shower and amenities that really look

nice and appealing to drivers. great chat. before we go, us trade regulator says it will investigate investments made by microsoft, google and amazon into ai start—ups openai and anthropic. federal trade commission says it is about keeping up a developments in al there as well as stopping major players from shutting out competitors. microsoft has so far moved fastest in the generative ai revolution, having reportedly spent $13 billion investment in openai. have a great weekend. i will see you next week in asia business report. bringing different stories from across the uk. i think we started, my brother—in—law and i, as a little seat. it seemed to grow organically from thereby lots

people visiting. grew, and grew and grew and just over the years each time mother nature takes it away again we have to come back and put it back together. there is not a lot left at all. everyone who came along to help rebuild the bench has their own memories of the place. are used to walk with my wife on the beach. when she died last april i brought her stones with a message on to remember her. now it is all gone so we will start again. these are memorabilia from previous bench, people have written their names on them. so, it might be nice to answer some of those back, so when people come they can see them. it is not the first time they have had to do this. the bench has been damaged by storms before and in this plaque donated then is now the centrepiece for the new bench once more. the group say they hope that more people come along and add

more driftwood and mementos to build the bench up once again to the community hub it once was. voice-over: for more stories from across the uk, _ head to the bbc news website. hey, i'mjulia with the catch up. tonight, an update on rubiales, a seven—figure mix up and a lion in a bentley. but first, a man who stabbed three people to death on the streets of nottingham has been told by a judge that he'll probably spend the rest of his life in a high—security hospital. valdo calocane was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia when he killed ian coates, barnaby webber and grace o'malley—kumar. so thejudge accepted a manslaughter plea, but the victim's families say that he got away with murder. true justice has not been served today. we as a devastated family have been let down by multiple agency failings and ineffectiveness. some other stories now.

a spanishjudge has proposed that luis rubiales should go to trial. he grabbed playerjenni hermoso head and kissed her after spain's victory against australia at the world cup. she said the kiss was not consensual, but mr rubiales denies that. police in thailand have arrested a woman whose pet lion was spotted going on a ride in a bentley. you can legally own a lion in thailand, but it needs to be officially registered. and white lotus star tom hollander got a big surprise when he received a seven—figure sum by accident. it was actually a box office bonus meant for tom holland, who played spider—man in the avengers. we'll leave you with ten seconds of this week's red carpet star, claudia schiffer�*s cat. yes, dua lipa and samuel l jackson went to the premiere of their new spy film argyle. but it's chip, the cat, and this iconic matching backpack that definitely stole the show. you're all caught up now.

see you. hello and welcome along to sportsday. i'm sarah mulkerrins. india have the advantage as we head into day two of the first test against england. stoppage time drama in the asian cup —

we'll bring you the latest as we enter the knockout stages. and, 16—year—old zak carrick—smith continues to impress at the winter youth olympic games. your very welcome along to the programme wherever you are watching around the world. it's one of the toughest places to go to and win a test series — and there's nothing that happened on day one of england's first test in india to suggests that it will be changing anytime soon. although it's very early days, india seem to have already

grabbed control of the opening match — thanks to excellent