this is business live from bbc news with ben thompson and sally bundock. an historic election in zimbabwe — the first in 30 years without robert mugabe on the ballot — but can the country overcome the economic challenges? live from london, that's our top story on monday the 30th ofjuly. after years of instability — zimbabwe wants to show it's open for business — we'll look at the country's economic health and what's drawing international investors. also in the programme... the mounting cost of trade wars — bmw will increase some prices in china because of tariffs imposed by both beijing and washington. and it's a big week for central bank news.

we'll look at all you need to know. now many of us have used companies like deliveroo and uber eats — but now other tech firms want to disrupt the distruptors. preoday is one of them and we'll find out how they plan to do it later in the programme. as thomas cook announces the end of package holidays to parks with killer whales — are these sorts of excursions becoming extinct? are ethics trumping entertainment? let us know — just use the hashtag #bbcbizlive. let us know what you think about that and the rest of the stories we are covering. zimbabweans go to the polls today and for the first time in 30 years and many in the country feel there's a real

possibility for change. robert mugabe left office earlier in the year ? giving way to emmerson mnagagwa, who s pledged to turn around over the past ten years it s been on the up. growth in the country last year came in at a rather respectable 3.4%. but it's forecast to fall to 2.8% this year and that's partly because of a shortage of cash . in 2008, zimbabwe had the second highest hyperinflation in the world ? just under 80 billion percent — that meant that prices doubled nearly every 2a hours. the zimbabwean dollar was ditched and currency was brought in line with the us dollar ? but that s caused long term stability issues. the economy is still largely dependent on farming. 0ver two—thirds of the working population are employed in the agricultural sector. emmerson mnangagwa has said that about way is open for business and has taken steps to open up domestic and foreign investment.

joining us now from the zimbabwean capital harare is stephen chan 0be — he's the author of several books which have focused on robert mugabe, and he's also the professor of world politics at the soas university in london. i understand people were queueing for hours before the polling stations opened earlier today. the question is, will we see a change of government or not? your thoughts on who might get the job? well, it is going to be touch and go. very tough contest. there were queueing from fora. it contest. there were queueing from for a. it will probably be the opposition leader that will win most of the vote, but nationwide it will be very close, and i think a brave person would call it and utter glee who will be the winner. in the rural areas and the countryside, the

government has a discernible lead. just to say that both key candidates, emmerson mnangagwa, they are talking about economic reform. mnangagwa has admitted some changes. —— implemented some changes. mnangagwa has admitted some changes. —— implemented some changesm mnangagwa has admitted some changes. -- implemented some changes. it will ta ke -- implemented some changes. it will take a long time for them to restructure the economy. the growth rate is an artificial indicator the import bill is enormous. there is not really a sustainable production foundation for the economy. the investment that comes, it will have to stimulate the foundations of economic productivity and growth. people looking for quick hits are not going to be able to sustain them for very long. do people have

confidence looking ahead that the zimbabwean economy could return to the days where it was thriving way backin the days where it was thriving way back in the late 80s, early 90s? the mood on the streets is of relief that robert mugabe is no longer a feature and that economic planning could take place without his baleful influence. in terms of what they expected economically, people are very realistic. they would like whoever wins the election to lay out a very carefully articulated, very clearly explained, step—by—step programme towards economic recovery. i don't think the blood taken in by sound bites that the years is going to open up and flour. they want a realistic programmer can work towards. thank you for your time. we

have a team based there throughout the day you can keep you up—to—date with how the historic election progress is going. let's take a look at some of the other stories making the news. retail sales injapan rose more than expected in june, mainly because of increased spending on fuel, appliances and cosmetics. sales were up 1.8% compared to a year earlier. the figures are a positive sign that households are growing more confident in the state of the economy. just a week after the election in pakistan, the country is looking to secure its largest ever bailout from the international monetary fund. according to reports, pakistan is looking for a loan in the region of $10 billion to stabalise its foreign reserves which have fallen sharply in the past year. and president donald trump has once again threatened to shut down the us government if he doesn't get funding for his wall on the mexico border. the tweet came after a meeting between trump and house speaker paul ryan and senate majority leader mitch mcconnell. talking of residentjohn peers part

of this next story. —— president donald trump. german carmaker bmw says it will raise the prices of two of its crossover suvs that are made in bmw factories in the us and then exported to china. this is to cope with the additional cost of tariffs on us car imports into the world's biggest auto market. karishma vaswani has the details from singapore. what we are starting to see is the rhetoric turning into reality for companies, take the case of bmw, the german car—maker says as early as monday. raising the retail price of the x five and x six suv models. analysts i have been speaking to say that the marginal increase in prices

at best, what this shows is that bmw is actually willing to take on the cost from the trade tariffs on its own and absorb bad, because it's already facing fierce competition among luxury car brands in china, bmw ships some of its cars in the us to china and that's why it's been hit by additional chinese tariffs on american car imports which came into effect in july. let me show you the numbers, pretty decent economic numbers from the us last week, markets ended lower over concerns that cracks could start to appeared in the tech sector, that until now has been one of the biggest drivers of growth. there was a second consecutive weekly fall for the nasdaq. lot of central bank news for us this week. the bank ofjapan, us federal reserve and the bank of england will update us on monetary policy.

we could also get a rate rise from the bank of england on thursday when they meet to run the rule over the uk economy and the latest inflation report. we'll also get to see a raft of economic reports from across the globe on how the manufacturing and services sectors are doing starting with china and japan tomorrow, along with pmi data from across europe, the uk and us, culminating with the us employment report forjuly at the end of the week. a busy week. so to kick us off, paul blake has the details of what's ahead on wall street today. well, it's a big news week for business in america, as earning season and macro—economics collide. at the top of the earnings agenda is apple, which is expected on tuesday to reveal a rise in profits and revenues off of the back of sustained iphone sales. upbeat news could see the company's valuation top $1 trillion. this time of year is typically

a sleepy one for apple watchers, but wall street will be listening for any comments on dates and prices for the next series of iphones. on wednesday, the federal reserve will announce its latest decision on interest rates. the consensus on wall street is that the rate will remain unchanged at i.75%—2% this week. on friday, one week after receiving strong gdp growth figures, we get the latestjobs numbers. economists are expecting the us economy to have added 195,000 jobs injuly, and the unemployment rate to drop to 3.9%. joining us now is lawrence gosling, editorial director of what investment? magazine. have i got that right? ijust wanted to check. it's a really busy week for the end ofjuly, beginning of august, you think many are way. it's quite exciting really, you follow markets and central banks, who dictate a lot of what goes on in all

of our lives, although it doesn't feel i could. i'm not of our lives, although it doesn't feeli could. i'm not the only of our lives, although it doesn't feel i could. i'm not the only one excited, did you see that? lawrence is excited to, my favourite week, central bank action. we focus a blot on the interest rates, the markets to look at this week the us and uk, we could in the uk and the markets predict we could get a rate rise on thursday from the monetary policy committee, get interest rates above half a percent for a long time. could we talk about this being a significant moment, this is getting back to normal, dealing with the problems of 2008, more than a decade ago. we will probably carry on for most of the rest of the next decade, in reality. interest rates... if we get a quarter of a percent rise, we are up to three quarters of the present, still psychologically small. this is what the monetary

policy committee want to do, send a signal to borrowers, still a heavily indebted nation, as is the us, interest rates are only going one way and that is up, going forward, long—term. way and that is up, going forward, long-term. what about the fed on wednesday, the growth figure out last week, president trump made the most of, this week more data coming out. as your correspondent said, jobs data looks positive, low unemployment in the us, if a chance we might get another interest rate rise in the us, if not this month then next month. it's all happening. lawrence, thank you. we will talk more at bout the tay bridge stories later. —— the paper its stories. still to come. getting what you want delivered to your door has never been easier. 0ne disruptor to the market brings food and clothing where you want, when you want. we'll find out what sets preoday apart from others offering a similar service. you're with business live from bbc news. northern rail is reinstating 75%

of the services it cancelled after a new timetable led to severe disruption. it scrapped 168 services per day last month to try to relieve chaos caused by the timetable's introduction in may. joining us from our newsroom is philip marsh, a journalist with railway magazine and rail.co.uk nice to see you. explain for people who aren't aware of what happened with that chaos recently, scrapping those services sounds like a recipe for disaster and some would say it was. it wasn't a recipe for disaster, it was a way of stabilising services and to get some certainty back into the timetable so passengers could reasonably expect a train rather than hang around and wait for one that doesn't turn up. how could a company scrapped so many services a day and still call themselves a train service?”

believe the rail industry is the old at team game, the northern before the franchise they were told that certain infrastructure would be ready by december 2016, they realistically plan services to start in may 20 18th realistically plan services to start in may 2018th but realistically plan services to start in may 20 18th but unfortunately the infrastructure was still not ready. they have to procure troops and as they reasonably expected to have an electrification finished by then they would have procured electric trains which can run when the electrification is running late. that means the diesel trains go off lease, they don't have enough trains to operate the service. and the decision to change the timetable was only made in january decision to change the timetable was only made injanuary by the managing director leaving 16 weeks to construct director leaving 16 weeks to co nstru ct a director leaving 16 weeks to construct a timetable that normally ta kes 48 construct a timetable that normally takes 48 weeks. where is the fault for this? there are too many contractual conflicts in the rail industry, for example the department

for transport lets the franchise, the franchisee makes the bid and it sometimes includes the fastest introduction of new trains and all trains new to the group. the franchisee then has two have a track access agreement with network rail which is contracted with the department for transport, then you have the leasing companies, train leasing companies. when people talk about integrating the railway, track and train, bus too many contractual conflicts to do that at the moment. good to talk to you, thank you for explaining that on an important date for the passengers at northern rail. yankee. thank you. you are with business life. our top story. polls are open in zimbabwe where the country's long—time leader robert mugabe will not feature on the ballot. he was removed from office in

november last year. economic issues are likely to be a key factor for those voting today. we will keep you right across all of that news. now, fancy a takeaway? brea kfast? why not? can we have it delivered now? the global takeaway delivery market will be worth worth a whopping $132 trillion by 2020. it's been through tumultuous change as new disruptors like justeat, ubereats, or china's giant ele. me and deliveroo, just to mention a few, have moved it onto digital platforms. but now these disruptors themselves face disruption. preoday helps restaurants and food outlets bypass the large cut taken by these ordering platforms and gives them access to customer data, not available through other platforms. excuse me, i'm justjoking. excuse me, i'mjustjoking. i

excuse me, i'm justjoking. iwill carry on. sharp intake of breath. ru all right? let's progress. nick hucker, ceo preoday, a digital ordering platform serving food and retail businesses across the world, is with us now. we explained how you work, we described you as a disrupter of the disrupters. explain what you are. we areafight disrupters. explain what you are. we are a fight label digital platform, we given organisation and app and web ordering, we don't penalised them for the number of orders they take, we don't take a margin cut and every single order that you as a consumer make. the consumer doesn't know who you are, what you were explaining to me which of me quite a bit, if i went to the opera house for example and i wanted a drink at half—time i would go to the upper house app, order it in advance, it would happen for me and i wouldn't know who you are. that's correct, a big part of our business is that our brand does not sit between the business and the consumer, we

believe that as their brand and they own it and they have the right to put it in front of the consumer. we simply enable them to get their brand bed through digital means and open up brand bed through digital means and open up revenue streams, brand bed through digital means and open up revenue streams, it's very straightforward really from that perspective. what's interesting about the likes of receipts and delivery, you can log onto the abundance ever take sure fancy, you have a range of stuff, chinese, italian, burgers, does your model not rely on you knowing that specific brand, so you say that shop that's on the high street, ten minutes away, i want to order from blackburn, you don't the choice, you have to go to a specific brand that you know about. you do but 70% of respondents in our research said they liked to go with a brand they knew and trusted, they didn't want to pay a fee to an aggregator, they felt comfortable, i go to a particular restaurant every friday, i would like to transact with that organisation and know the money i pay will go to that organisation and not a third party. but does a

restau ra nt not a third party. but does a restaurant not say to you being on the likes of deliberate' new market of people who would not normally come across them? attentively but the fact that we are giving them their own data, their own market to individuals, and the fact they are rewarding you for liking their brand, consuming through their brand they are not passing on that lead to you. how do you make money? we are a platform, simple monthly subscription charge whether you take a pound or 22 million, you don't care, you simply sign up. when you say you, you say the client which is... the theatre or... correct. the customer does not pay anything for this. the customer sees no charge whatsoever, the venue pays as a flat monthly fee with no hidden costs, no marginal cost. what is useful for a lot of firms is that the data this platform provides, telling you about habits, spending. how useful is that

too small firms? we discussed but in the office this morning, it's great if you are big organisation, you have someone who can analyse this, put it to good use in terms of targeting and marketing, how good is that if you are a small outlet, what can you do with it? put simply you can you do with it? put simply you can identify that nick comes into my cafe every friday and if i offered him another coffee this is not a huge leap for a restaurant or a cafe owner to make. but i have the right, thatis owner to make. but i have the right, that is my data, my client why should that day to be owned by someone else and secondly, it's a very simple push notification, wouldn't you like another coffee on friday? so... and that works? it does. i think so. we work with a fish and chip chain and what they do, they moved away from aggregators and they had seen 20% of their annual sales revenue coming through the app and the average ticket sizes

nearly 80% bigger than people coming in and taking away, for that means is they can incentivise you to come in and say have another portion of chips, more fish, it drives business body for them. interesting. we will have to leave it there, i'm afraid, but thank you. best of luck. thank you very much. a disrupter to the disrupters. fish and chip chat at 8:50am. hey, ioffer disrupters. fish and chip chat at 8:50am. hey, i offer it, disrupters. fish and chip chat at 8:50am. hey, ioffer it, i disrupters. fish and chip chat at 8:50am. hey, i offer it, i have an up 8:50am. hey, i offer it, i have an up since 3am. as a teenager in the 1980s, clem chambers created some of the world's first computer games but now he's switched to doing business with blockchain. the lesson he's learnt, he says, is to treat business as a marathon, not a sprint. you have to be prepared for a marathon when you start a business. if you think it's a sprint, you're going to end up in a very bad way, very quickly. we were first generation of computer

game people in the uk. and it's an incredibly difficult business, it still is. you might think computer games are going to be massive, it's so obvious. one of the things that i learned in particular was that things that you see are going to happen very soon take a lot longer to happen. blockchain will be a noticeably larger industry than everything we know about the internet today. we are really four or five years before the real explosion, the real bubble of the blockchain kicks off. talking a lot about block chain. lawrence is back to look through the papers. let's start with the story we asked

the viewers about this morning, thomas cook banning, to stop selling tickets to the us, water parks that have colour of wales in captivity. a small move on their part but again sets the tone, doesn't it? back doors. it is a trend in the travel industry. against these, you would struggle to call them... experience? rob a bleak the right world. seaworld in florida, similar one in tenerife, thomas cook will not sell tickets to this, 29 other attractions they will not sell tickets to that have similar animal —based experiences because of concerns about the death of some of the animals. certainly the viewers might remember some of the killer foils that died a couple of years ago, a big outcry, that was the start of it. again the association

providing guidelines for travel companies about how to react to what the customer said. —— killer whales. customers increasingly saying they don't want to go to this. jackie sums up most of the messages, surely no one believes that an walker should be kept in captivity? this will not be a simple transition but it's important. i think that's your point, it is the start of the process of phasing these things out. absolutely, thomas cook reacting to its customers, it says. as your correspondent said, that's it. over time for the demand from travel companies is becoming a lot more ethical, actually, these experiences are not amongst them. let's squeeze in another story, amazon supplying the public sector in £600 million yorkshire deal. supplying paperclips to bandages to schools, the public

sector and the local authority in yorkshire it says amazon was one of only two macro companies that tendered for what you would call an outsourcing wheel and they can do it incredibly cheaply, it's fascinating the way amazon says it can do it. it has a the way amazon says it can do it. it hasa similar the way amazon says it can do it. it has a similar contract in the us. pretty lucrative market to be in. if they can replicate that across the country at a market that they want. absolutely, the public sector under huge pressure to reduce cost and the procurement in the public sector is very costly and probably very inefficient in reality. thank you for coming in. a pleasure. great to have you on the programme. we will see florence right with his predictions as the week regresses. a busy week for everyone, we will keep you right across all of them. that's it from business live today. there will be more business news throughout the day on the bbc live webpage and on world business report. we'll see you again tomorrow. good morning. the rainfall was very

useful for most parts of the country. still quite a shock to the system. the week ahead, things turning less windy, still some showers over the next few days but it will warm up and try up once again as we look towards the end of the week, a return to the summer heatwave as we end the week. for today, low—pressure to the north—west, driving shrubbery weather fronts from west to east, a day of sunny spells and scattered blustery showers, the heaviest across the south—east of england, they should ease. for parts of northern england, north west scotland, some heavy showers, the odd rumble of thunder. no for immune from catching those showers. plenty of sunshine in between, later this afternoon, lifting temperatures to 19 to around 25—26 in the

south—east. most of the showers shooed ease as we did the words this evening, largely dry end to the day, overnight shrubbery rain heading into the south—west, wales, southern england, to the north largely dry to start tuesday, temperatures in double figures. reasonably mild still. through tuesday, the showers initially in the south—east clearing fairly quickly, mostly dry day, more cloud working in from the north—west, shrubbery rain from north—western scotland, northern ireland, cooler here, 19 degrees, in the south—east, 24—25. as we look towards the middle of the week, a warm front starting to approach from the atlantic. that having in warmer air behind it, bringing more cloud across the west through wednesday. showery rain or northern ireland, pushing into scotland, wales. for central and eastern parts it will say sunny, temperatures warming up

to around 27 in the warmest spot, not quite as warm under a cloud and further is showers. showery rain for northern and western parts towards the end of the week, high pressure building again into friday, looks like temperatures will be on the rise. across scotland and northern ireland highs of 23, in the south—east temperatures reaching a maximum of 31. goodbye. hello, it's monday, it's 9am, welcome to the programme. would you pay thousands of pounds to try and kick—start a modelling career? this programme has found young people are being duped by modelling companies to handing over hundreds or thousands of pounds for photo portfolios and the promise of work with top brands that never materialise. we see right away that this was not going to happen, i see she was frustrated, and she was

being lied to and it was a very strong experience. welcome to the aduu strong experience. welcome to the adult world.