welcome to asia business report. i'm steve lai. we begin with breaking news from hong kong by a high courtjudge has reportedly ordered the liquidation of chinese property developer evergrande after the developer failed to come up with an acceptable restructuring plan for its overseas creditors. trading in evergrande�*s shares has been suspended on the hong kong stock exchange. let's bring in mariko oi. what does this mean for evergrande going forward? the past hour we now have a confirmation that this liquidation order has been made stopjunction linda chan saying enough is enough. of course this case was filed more than 1.5 years ago and the company was told to come up with a better restructuring plan every single time the decision was delayed up until now that the judge has decided to order the

liquidation of the company. it basically means its assets will be seized, sold off, in order to repay some of its outstanding debt. in terms of the company public day—to—day operation including building homes in mainland china, it will probably stay the same for now. this ruling doesn't send a through the chinese financial market because of course for many decades a real —— the real estate sector has been one of the major drivers for china's economy growth. whether or not this liquidation process will be followed remains to be seen because despite the one country, two systems slogan, many experts that i've spoken to have said that there are some thornyjurisdiction issues some thornyjurisdiction issues so whether or not the liquidation there liquidator that will be appointed by hong kong court, whether or not that person will be recognised by mainland china remains to be seen. of course a lot of ordinary chinese citizens have been, have invested in evergrande, haven't had their

homes built and they are the chinese government's priority, not foreign investors who have filed this petition. this liquidation _ filed this petition. this liquidation will - filed this petition. this liquidation will have i filed this petition. this . liquidation will have some impact for sure. mariko oi, thank you, in our newsroom. this all comesjust as thank you, in our newsroom. this all comes just as chinese authorities made their latest attempt to stabilise financial markets by restricting shortselling. chinese securities regulator that the move is designed to create a fairer market order. short—sellers try to make money on shares, bonds or other financial instruments that they think will fall in price. by curbing the practice, regulators are hoping to halt a worsening sell—off. china's stock market tumbled for a third consecutive year in 2023. its benchmark csi 300 index of shanghai and shenzhen—listed stocks dropped 11% last year and has extended its slide in the new year. earlier, i spoke to the director for economic research at moody's analytics katrina ell, and she told me this latest measure is an attempt to address negative investor sentiment about china's economic recovery.

what we are seeing is the stock—market rout that has really gathered steam over the past couple of weeks — is really a reflection of the fact that there is this unrelenting bearish sentiment when it comes to china — in particular china's economy — and so i don't think that curbing shortselling is really addressing the root cause of the problem that households, businesses, particularly in china, are not feeling exuberant about the economic recovery, and so this latest measure is really a band—aid solution rather than finding an actual solution to the problem. a bit more about the bigger problem at hand here then — china's economy — how deep do its problems go? incredibly deep. i think that there's some incredibly problematic structural concerns when it comes to china's economy, and i think the property market is one that is really front and centre, and what we're seeing is that the correction in the property market is manifesting in so many

different areas of the economy, particularly private sector investment is particularly weak. we've seen a rise in defaults as well, and so what we're expecting over the course of this year is we'll see ongoing monetary but particularly fiscal stimulus directed to the property market, but not in a way that reinvigorates the property market, but in a way that works to try and stabilise it so that we can actually get a broader stabilisation in china's economy because what we have seen in this post—covid world is it that stimulus is really necessary for china to achieve its growth goals. meanwhile, china and the us have been battling over semiconductors. they power everything from cars to smartphones. the biden administration will award subsidies to chipmakers to boost semiconductor production in the united states. the plans of first reported by the wall streetjournal are part of the $53 billion chips and science act. both domestic

and science act. both domestic and foreign chipmakers are expected to get a share of the funds. the social media platform x is hiring 100 content moderators for its new office in texas. the new team will focus on restricting child abuse content and it comes just days before a us senate hearing about online child sexual exploitation. chief executive of ex— lindy carino is scheduled to testify along with snap, mata and discord. and staying with the technology sector — more than 20,000 tech workers around the world have lost theirjob in the first month of this year. that is according to tracking website layoffs.fyi. google, microsoft, amazon and ebay are just some of the companies that have announced spending cuts. tom kang is a research director at technology market research firm counterpoint. earlier, he told me why leading companies in the tech industry are letting people go. it comes at a time where they are newly investing in al, so on the surface it looks like they are shifting

from other technologies to ai, but underlying is the fact that the interest rate is very high, which is the cost of investment. so, they have to prioritise the investments now, and the other factor is that the global economy, contrary to the us economy, is not doing that well. so, big tech has to brace themselves for the market not receiving their products that well. so, this is an underlying factor of the global economy going down and interest rates staying at a high point, and ai is definitely triggering this since last year. let's take you through some of the key business in india, thousands of men desperate to secure jobs have been going to recruitment offices to sign up for work in israel. in a treaty signed last year india's government promised to send more than 40,000 workers to the middle eastern country. we visited a recruitment centre in the northern indian state of

depredation. —— in the northern indian state of uttar pradesh. braving a frosty winter morning, thousands gather at this government recruitment centre, willing to risk going to a country at war. the only hope — a well paying job. translation: we are just running around looking - forjobs. if we get one here, why would we risk going to a war zone? translation: we have families to take care of. j all this crowd is waiting here only for the hope of a good salary in israel. one of those is 24—year—old sugriv, who travelled 300km to try his luck as a carpenter. ajob in israel will get him six times the salary he makes here through ad—hoc jobs. translation: i want to break the cycle of poverty my - family has seen. if i get good money, i will go, even if it's risky. these skilled workers are meant to fill part of the labour shortage in israel's construction industry after work permits of thousands of palestinian workers

were revoked amidst the ongoing conflict in gaza. the jobseekers you see around me are part of india's sprawling and precarious informal economy. they do ad—hocjobs with no formal contracts or benefits. most of them, who are even college graduates, end up getting paid just $8 to $10 a day. this is a crisis that has not changed, despite india being the fastest growing major economy in the world. even prime minister narendra modi's focus on foreign investment and big—ticket infrastructure projects has not helped rising unemployment in the country. educated youth bear the the highest burden. the latest research by india's azim premji university shows 15% of all graduates and 42% of graduates under 25 years old have nojobs. what we need to do in a young country like ours where

everyone is getting better educated is to generate many more non—farm jobs. 0n the contrary, what we have seen happen in the last five or six years in particular is that manufacturing jobs actually fell in absolute terms and as a share of total employment, manufacturing as a share of gdp actually contracted despite all the talk about make in india. for these jobseekers, despite security concerns in israel, the chance to earn an income outweighs the rest, at least for now. before we go, let's get you a recap of that breaking story this hour coming out from hong kong where a high courtjudge has reportedly ordered the liquidation of chinese property china evergrande. it comes after the developer failed to come up with an acceptable restructuring plan for its overseas creditors. meanwhile, trading in evergrande shares has been suspended on the hong kong stock exchange. speaking of the hang seng,

lepers might look at where the indexis lepers might look at where the index is right now. you can see is just up over index is right now. you can see isjust up over i%. index is right now. you can see is just up over i%. stocks rising in hong kong this morning after the latest attempt by beijing to stabilise the border in mainland china. chinese securities regulator announced it was restricting shortselling to create what it called a fairer market order. that is it for me for now 0neasia business report. goodbye for now. —— that is it for me for now on asia business report. this is sophia, and so is this, and this is her, too. all three sculptures are based on sophia, an 11—year—old slave girl baptized at lancaster priory in 1799. people come in and they do ask the question, you know, why? and the minute that you say these are part of ourjourney in addressing the history that we have in connection with transatlantic

slavery, people go, "0h!" lancaster was once the fourth biggest slave port in the country in 2020. —— lancaster was once the fourth biggest slave port in the country. in 2020, the priory was targeted with graffiti. about its links to the trade, they've deliberately kept it visible today. i think it is really important that we are telling stories about the past. it's something that we we want to acknowledge. we don't want to hide it. we want to be honest about it. staff from the facing the past arts project have been involved with the sophias and other initiatives across lancaster. we've been looking at improving the education of our primary and secondary school pupils. we've looked at improving the slavery walk. we've been looking at whether or not there should be permanent new monuments. voiceover: for more stories from across the uk, - head to the bbc news website.

voice-over: bbc news - i bringing you different stories from across the uk. every morning i walk down here to record the rainfall about 9:00. since he was ten years old, tom bowen from anglesey has made the same journey to the bottom of his garden every day without fail. we take the funnel out, which collects the rainfall. there's a bottle underneath, which collects the water. it's then put into a calibrated gauge, and that's more or

less one millimetre. the rainfall measurements tom takes are passed on to natural resources wales. it helps us with forecasting, with modelling and with water resources. the weather station he uses was built by his grandfather at the end of the 19th century. tom took over the responsibility of measuring the rainfall in 1948. how long do you think you'll keep going? as long as they can. as long as i can walk, hopefully! for more stories from across the uk, head to the bbc news website. hello and welcome to sportsday. i'm lizzie greenwood—hughes. the headlines tonight: a famous test victory for england in one of the toughest places to tour. klopp may be off, but liverpool are into

the fifth round of the fa cup. and goalie lionel mpasi kicks the penalty that sends dr congo through to the quarterfinals of afcon. hello and welcome then to a busy sportsday. and we are starting with cricket. england captain ben stokes says his side's incredible opening test victory in india was their best under his leadership. facing an india side who'd only lost three times on home soil in the past decade, england somehow turned a i90—run first—innings deficit into a hugely unexpected 28—run win. before this, the biggest lead any touring team had previously overturned there was just 65, and that was by australia 60 years ago. england's vice—captain 0llie pope was player of the match after saving the game

with a stunning knock of 196, while debutant spinner tom hartley took seven wickets to force the win. england lead the five—match series 1—0. we've been a part of some amazing games over the last two years. we've had some incredible victories. but i think considering where we are, who we played against, the position we found ourselves going into, our second — second innings of batting was just be able to sit here now and say we've gone 1—0 up. i think that's a big reason as to why i feel this is our best victory since i've become captain. a lot of players are quite young in the sense that a lot of players are quite young in the sense that a lot of these guys do play a lot of white ball cricket and also maybe don't get a lot of time to get to play a lot of first—class cricket as well. so they are learning and i think they are getting there. but, like i said, i'm a little bit disappointed in the first innings, where we probably left about 17 runs on the ball.