more turbulence for boeing as its ceo announces his exit from the company. and we look at the chinese company that has emerged as a frontrunner in the global electric vehicle market. hello and welcome to asia business report. i'm steve lai. we start with boeing. it has announced that its chief executive will step down later this year. has been under pressure since a panel on a boeing 737 blew off midflight in the us injanuary. amid the deepening safety crisis, two other senior executives are also leaving the company. the bbc�*s international business correspondent theo leggett has more. a terrifying moment for passengers as a door flew off a brand—new

alaska airlines boeing 737 max injanuary. the incident plunged boeing into a crisis, raising questions about its attitude to safety. now the boss, dave calhoun, says he's stepping down. he was appointed at a desperate time for the company. bad design and corporate failures had been blamed for two tragic accidents involving the 737 max — in ethiopian and in indonesia — in which 346 people died. mr calhoun promised change but critics say that hasn't happened. he had opportunities to make changes as a member of the board. certainly in a ceo position, it's been one failure after the other, so i can't say there's been really any successes under mr calhoun. humanitarian worker sam pegram died when the ethiopian plane crashed. not only does poor safety kill people but it's pretty damning for the share price and the careers of ceos as well, so, let's get somebody

who can put focus where it matters and make planes safer for everybody. in a letter to workers, mr david calhoun said... his successor will need both qualities if they're to pilot the aerospace giant back into less turbulent skies. theo leggett, bbc news. plenty more on this story including the news and allow —— analysis on the bbc news website. now to the annual boao forum for asia. it kicks off today in hainan in southern china. technology, trade and innovation are high on the agenda and the list of attendees include various high—profile business leaders. let's get more from our asia business reporter, sura njana tewari. tell us more about this form and why it is so important this year. steve, the boao forum

is sometimes dubbed as asia's davos. it's an effort for chinese leaders to try and court things like foreign investment and even chinese businesses to try and expand. boy does it needed at the moment. it's obviously got that property crisis, youth unemployment is very high as well, so politicians want foreign investors to go to china, pour in money and they also want to local businesses to expand. china also has a very ambitious growth target, 5%. high on the agenda is investing in asia and then in the last hour they have said the gdp of asia could grow to 4.5% so they will be hoping that they are able to try and persuade foreign companies and chinese companies to expand their businesses within china. and to meet ambitious growth target the message very clearly then must be that china is open

for business.— for business. yes, it seems as thou . h for business. yes, it seems as though and — for business. yes, it seems as though and this _ for business. yes, it seems as though and this comes - for business. yes, it seems as though and this comesjust . for business. yes, it seems as i though and this comesjust days though and this comes just days after another business forum that was held in beijing, the china development forum. it was attended by some really big foreign ceos including apple ceo tim cook. these foreign firms have often complained about the red tape in china and how difficult it is to do business and how local companies are given advantages. they have also complained about things like intellectual property theft. at the china development forum held in beijing a few days ago, chinese politicians promised that foreign firms would also be given a level playing field. we'll have to see if any similar promises come out of the forum. similar promises come out of the forum-— the forum. suran'ana tewari speaking h the forum. suran'ana tewari speaking to _ the forum. suran'ana tewari speaking to us _ the forum. suranjana tewari speaking to us from - the forum. suranjana tewari i speaking to us from singapore. staying with china. and zooming in on the ev market, where one player has emerged as the

front—runner — byd. recently the carmaker has been engaging in a full—out price war, discounting almost every electric and hybrid model it sells in china. byd will report its annual results later this morning. for more on what we can expect, let's bring in ray wang from constellation research. i think we're expecting a 33% increase in net profits and we will see where that goes. there's a forecast net profit that will be 6.4%, a little bit higher than what was 4.9% higher than the last quarter, year over year. but we're in the middle of a price war and i think all tension is to see whether the oed�*s gaining in market share and gaining in profits and it will be interesting to see what's happening there because we've seen a slump in china for a little bit but we actually think that the government programmes at the moment that are actually encouraging the buyback and replacement of old cars with incentives for evs. so we'll see how that plays out when the numbers come out. just coming back to byd. they took the sales leadership

crown in 04 of 2023. do you expect them to hold it in 01 of 202a? i think it will be close. there was a slump in china with the price war and a lot of what was going on may actually hold them back. tesla was also pushing really hard towards the end and of course the new models with the cyber truck, so we will see if they can hold the crown of number one ev volume producer but i think it will be very close. the china development forum plans were put in place to spur innovation and growth especially in high—tech and clean energy. how do you see that impacting the ev sector in china? it's a boom. the xpengs, the zeekrs, the saics, the wulings, they're basically hoping for that renewal, the replacement from the internal combustion engines to ev, it's part of that modernisation and the reduction of dependency on germany, japan and the us, especially on the technology, and it gives them the ability to leapfrog ahead. so i think it's going to help the car makers in general but it's a very competitive market, especially given there are more players coming into that market very soon. those are domestic rivals.

how does china evs all stack up against the current leader, if you like, in the space, tesla 7 there's a war on global ev growth, right? byd has started to expand into europe. they've a hungarian plant that is actually going to produce up to 300,000 cars, going up against volkswagen and other makers in europe, and of course there's efforts to build a plant in mexico. tesla already has a gigafactory in berlin, a gigafactory in shanghai and of course they're ramping to the same level volume, so it's going to be a battle between the high—end and low—end with byd which has a full range of models, and of course with tesla on the other end of the spectrum, and don't count the koreans out — see a lot of effort from hyundai and kia who are building amazing ev cars. staying with the tech sector, the european union has announced investigations into some of the biggest tech firms in the world over uncompetitive practices. meta, apple and alphabet which owns google, are been looked into the

potential breaches of the digital markets act. they face fines of up to 10% of their annual turnovers is if they are found to have broken the rules. wework co—founder adam newman has reportedly moved to buy the troubled office sharing company. he has made an unsolicited bid of more than $500 million for the firm according to us media reports. wework was once valued at close to $50 billion. it filed for bankruptcy in the us last november. in the last hour, sri lanka's central bank will announce its latest rate decision. the south asian nation is still recovering from its worst economic crisis in decades, after defaulting on foreign debt in 2022. colombo is in the process of getting bailed out by the international monetary fund. last week the bank approved the third instalment of $3 billion. during the crisis, prices in sri lanka rose as much as 70%. the inflation rate has eased to around 6% but the economy still faces issues in the months ahead,

says ganeshan wignaraja from global think tank odi. the economy's indeed recovering. inflation is down to about 6% and the exchange rate is around 300 rupees to the us dollar. and there is also foreign reserves — extra 2.5 billion and tourism numbers are up. this is really due to decisive measures by the wickremesinghe government, with indian and the imf programme, but there is growth that is needed for the economy to come out of this crisis and to be able to pay off its debts — and exports are also needed and that is a big challenge going forward. the president says he expects the country to make a full recovery byjune this year, obviously buoyed by the positive trajectory things have been going in. do you think that is realistic or do you think there is still a long way to go? growth this year could be

i-i.5% in 2024 which is below the three odd % before the debt crisis in 2022 and it —— poverty has risen to something like a quarter of the population measured at about $365 which is the standard middle income policy measure. and we need it over 3—4 years to get to some kind of normalcy but unfortunately we have elections this year for the presidency and then parliament in 2025, and the two main opposition parties are saying they want to renegotiate the imf deal so there is uncertainty ahead in this very recovering scenario. canada's ca nada's maple syrup canada's maple syrup has reached a low. warmer weather disrupted production. that is a relief to hear for now. see you

in the next hour.

hey, i'mjulia with the catch up. tonight a festival of colour, a dragon ball theme park and the race that would make superman weep. but first, the un security council has demanded an immediate ceasefire in gaza between israel and hamas. they have also demanded that all hostages be released. it is the first time they have reached this agreement. the us had previously used their veto but this time they changed their position and abstained in response, the israeli pm benjamin netanyahu has cancelled a planned meeting between israel and the us.

two men have been found guilty of cody fisher's murder. the 23—year—old was stabbed in a birmingham nightclub on boxing day in 2022. the court heard that it was a revenge plot after cody brushed past one of the men in a bar two days earlier. his mum described the pair as evil. some other stories now. saudi arabia have announced they're building a dragon ball theme park, but some fans have criticised the idea because of the country's human rights record. and a runnerfrom scotland has become the first woman in history to finish the berkeley marathons in tennessee. it covers 100 miles and enough uphill terrain to scale mount everest twice. plus you've got to finish it in 60 hours or less, which she did, with one minute and 39 seconds to spare. and we will leave you with ten seconds of colour, yes. and this is holi, or the festival of colours, and millions of indians have been celebrating it all over the world. people throw bright colours

over friends and family and dance to mark the beginning of spring. you're all caught up now. have a good night. hello and welcome to sportsday with me will perry. poland stand in the way of wales, who are are one game away from a place at euro 202a. the ugly side of the game. brazil's viniciusjunior breaks down as he's asked about racism ahead of his country's friendly against spain. and we hear from the first female runner to complete one of the world's toughest races as she arrives home in britain. welcome to sportsday.