this is business live from bbc news with maryam moshiri and ben thompson. a defiant message to the us. the founder and chief executive of the chinese telecoms giant huawei speaks exclusively to the bbc. llve from london, that's our top story on tuesday 19th february. ——live from london, that's our top story on tuesday 19th february. the huawei boss tells us his company will not cave in to pressure from washington, despite security concerns over its systems. also in the programme — a significant blow for the uk car industry, as honda confirms plans to slash 3,500 jobs. and european markets have opened like this. european stocks have opened flat. and we'll get the inside track on making sure your workforce is diverse. we meet the firm helping business recruit more ethnic minorities by using data instead of cvs. and would you pay an extra penny on a clothing purchase, to help improve its recycling?

those are the plans to create a £35 million a year recycling scheme. but would you pay and will it work to help cut the impact of fast fashion? let us know, use #bbcbizlive. hello and welcome to business live. welcome to the programme. we start with the chinese telecoms giant huawei, which has been under the spotlight and faced intense scrutiny for the past year. its critics accuse the chinese government of using huawei as a proxy so it can spy on rival nations. however, the firm denies all allegations. huawei was founded in 1987 and is owned by 80,000 of its 180,000 employees. the firm has grown so rapidly over the past three decades and currently has 16% of the world s smartphone market. the firm hit the headlines late last year, when the daughter of huawei s founder —

meng wanzhou — was arrested in canada after a request from the united states, who accuse her of fraud. wanzhou is also huawei's chief financial officer. washington has long been sceptical of huawei s intentions, claiming their equipment is a threat to national security. the us, along with australia and new zealand, have all blocked localfirms from using huawei to provide the technology for their 56 networks. despite its negative press, huawei remains hugely popular in china. it currently has almost 30% of the domestic smartphone market. in an exclusive interview with the bbc, the founder and ceo of the chinese telecoms giant was defiant, saying pressure from washington will only make it stronger. 0ur asia business correspondent, karishma vaswani spoke exclusively to huawei's famously reclusive founder ren zhengfei. translation: there's no way

the us can crush us. the world needs huawei because we are more advanced. even if they persuade more countries not to use us temporarily, we could just scale things down a bit, and because the us keeps targeting us and finding fault with us, it has forced us to improve our products and services. what kind of impact would it have on your business if the us is successful in getting many of its partners in the west to shut your equipment out? translation: if the lights go out in the west, the east will still shine, and if the north goes dark, then there is still the south. america doesn't represent the world. how important is the future of huawei in the uk with regards to your investment plans and jobs? are you able to guarantee that you will not be pulling out of the uk? you will not be taking jobs out of the uk? translation: we will continue

to invest in the uk. we still trust in the uk and we hope that the uk will trust us even more. we will invest even more in the uk because, if the us doesn't trust us, then we will shift our investment from the us to the uk on an even bigger scale. mr ren, i would like to raise the issue of your daughter. this is a personally very challenging time for you. she is in canada, she has been arrested by the us's request and she faces extradition. how do you feel about this and what will you do if she is sent to jail? translation: i object to what the us has done. this kind of politically motivated attack is not acceptable. the us likes to sanction others whenever there is an issue. they will use such methods. we object to this. there's no impact on huawei's business due to meng

wanzhou's loss of freedom. in fact, we are growing even faster. they may have thought that, if they arrested her, huawei would fall, but we didn't fall, we are still moving forward. our company has established processes and procedures and no longer relies on any one person. even if i myself go one day, this company won't change its trajectory forward. you saw a business correspondent karishma vaswani asking the questions of the chief executive officer of huawei. she joins questions of the chief executive officer of huawei. shejoins us now. you got the inside track on what he thought about so many issues. what stood out for you most? well, the thing that stood out for

me most wasjust well, the thing that stood out for me most was just a real sense of confidence from ren zhengfei. his company, the business he has spent the last three decades building from the last three decades building from the ground up from this city, in fa ct, the ground up from this city, in fact, from the city of shenzhen, he began the firm in 1987 with three people, $2500, and that company is 110w people, $2500, and that company is now basically, i think he would see it as being seen as a target of the united states. but with regards to the pressure from washington he was very defiant. and that was the mood that i consistently got from him, he is confident that his products and his business will be able to continue servicing his customers. the other thing i found continue servicing his customers. the other thing ifound quite intriguing as well was he was very clear that there are other options, many other options, for why —— huawei. i talk to him about the suspicions are raised notjust by

the united states, but other countries, countries that want to partner with huawei, like the united kingdom, but have found risks in its technology and he said with regards to the uk they are working to try and fix some of those risks but he was vehement, there was no way that he would never hand over any data to the chinese government. if he was asked he said he would shut the company down first. irish mother suwanee thank you father, karishma vaswani with that insight into the thinking and thought processes at the business, clearly a very trying time. let's take a look at some of the other stories making the news. the world s biggest miner bhp says profits in the first half of the year were down 8% because of production disruptions and a fall in commodity prices. profit fell to just over $4 billion, down from $4.4 billion a year ago. the mining giant has also raised its production forecasts for the year ahead. the world's largest yoghurt maker danone said like—for—like sales last year climbed 2.9% to around $27.9 billion.

that was slightly higher than the 2.5% recorded in 2017. the food group said cost cuts and a move into healthy eating trends mean they expect profits to come in higher this year. a new round of talks between the united states and china to resolve their trade war will take place in washington later. the talks follow a round of negotiations that ended last week in beijing without a deal. the two countries are running out of time to reach agreement on a trade deal before the march 1st deadline set by president donald trump and his chinese counterpart xijinping. let's get more on the confirmation, the news breaking in the last half an hour, that the car—maker honda will close its swindon plant in the uk by 2021 leading to 3500 job cuts. it's the latest car maker to anounce a scaling back of operations in the uk,

after nissan and jaguar land rover both announced cuts. nina warhurst is at honda's swindon plant for us. well, honda is the fifth biggest car manufacturer in the uk. production has gone on here since 1992 and 3,500 jobs rely on it. they make around 250,000 cars here a year and inevitably this morning there is speculation that brexit is to blame for the closure. let's talk to jim let's talk tojim holder from what car. good morning. do you see one reason to blame was mike i don't think there is one reason to blame but honda has been specific in the reason it has given, that is that it needs to invest in electrifying its future model line—up. needs to invest in electrifying its future model line-up. by 2025 it wa nts two future model line-up. by 2025 it wants two thirds of its vehicles to be electrified in some form and it says the billions required to invest means it has to withdraw from unprofitable markets, europe has been challenging for them. but i would say there are other blows

within that that create this perfect storm. yes, you could look at brexit, you could look at trade deals, you could look at the drop in diesel but the shift to electrification is the major problem. in a nutshell, if we are in the south of france now, a country not leaving the eu, would things be the same? i suspect they would be, would this —— i suspect the decision has come quicker because of the unique conditions in the uk but ultimately i think we would have ended up where we are where ever we were. 3500 jobs here and thousands more that rely on it in the wider economy and workers who are telling us economy and workers who are telling us they are really worried here because they say the job market in swindon is already saturated. nina warhurst, thank you. now let's look at the markets, mixed picture in asia, the hang seng not in positive territory, the dow jones, asia, the hang seng not in positive territory, the dowjones, monday was a public holiday. 0n european stocks, it is down in the dumps, london is down, greggs makes things

like sausage rolls, it made the vegan sausage roll recently and it made a splash in the market for sausage rolls and it has helped its sales performance rise and its share price is up. last time i checked, 10% on the london market. bhp prpoducton disappointing shares down over 1%. and samira hussain has the details of what's ahead on wall street today. walmart will be reporting earnings on tuesday. it will be a chance for investors to see how the world's largest retailer did during the holiday season. walmart has had to grapple with higher transportation costs and higher duties levelled on some items. in addition, walmart continues to invest in its online business, all things that will have an impact on their earnings. that said, the company has been able to drive more traffic through its doors, which will likely boost sales numbers for the quarter. investors will be keen to hear what the management has to say about the strength of the consumer and its flipkart business and whether the government shutdown or the polar vortex had any impact. samira hussain with the details in

new york, walmart is one to watch. joining us is chrisjustham, relationship manager at seven investment management. nice to see you. what are you watching? we said earlier, trade talks are resuming, the deadline of march the 1st is looming closer but no real insight about whether a deal will get done yet. not at the moment and we constantly have to go back and we constantly have to go back and forward with regards to what donald trump says, he mentioned the trade talks are productive and we had a positive reaction in the asian session as a result, in the us markets which were closed yesterday for president's day, but really we don't have an indication, looking at the rhetoric trying to find out what is real, what is policy, and donald trump with his brand of diplomatic hooliganism, is incredibly hard to pin the tail on the donkey. from our perspective it is a bit of a wait and see, it would indicate they are getting closer to a deal but markets will still be jittery, albeit muted

so far today. they have been, haven't they? economic news coming out of the uk with jobs figures later. expecting much? given the news from honda in that light? unemployment has been particularly low, you are absolutely right, framed through the lens of what has happened at honda it is difficult to look at economic numbers without looking at the human impact but it is expected to remain relatively unmoved, incremental rises where salaries are concerned is always important and we have to make sure they are outpacing inflation, broadly positive on that front. currency unmoved, the pound, despite the fact the seven mps walked away, hasn't particularly moved against other major currencies, so at the moment are relatively muted. basically not much going on. what are you doing here!? it is quite normal and we will take that given what we have had in the last few weeks. given you have a newborn baby as well you must be quite relieved that things are a bit quieter at work. at the weekend, we had hsbc coming out today with results,

profits could come up 16% of the year before but disappointed markets and that sets the tone for the week ahead because we have barclays and lloyds coming out, and talking about brexit, we can't avoid it, obviously, looking at the week ahead it will give a good example of what is going on within the domestic economy can perhaps. the next few days will be interesting. chris, for now, thank you, nice to see you. chris will return later to talk about netflix and its big spending ahead of the oscars. still to come — profiling of a positive type. we'll be speaking to the recruitment firm that helping candidates from disadvantaged backgrounds by using more than their cvs. you're with business live from bbc news. banking giant hsbc had its latest results out overnight and profit came in lower than expected. europe's biggest bank made $19.9 billion before tax last year, compared to $17.2 billion the year before. the bank has blamed a slowdown in china for the lower figures.

let's speak to james hughes from axi trader. what do you make of the figures?m seems whenever a company wants to... is underperforming the fashion is to blame china at the moment, and it seems like we have seen that a lot. but with hsbc, what we have to remember is, yes, these numbers were wea ker remember is, yes, these numbers were weaker than we expected, they are wea ker weaker than we expected, they are weaker than we expected, they are weaker than the street expected but what we have seen is them performing particularly well still, they have made much more money than what they made much more money than what they made last year, and what has been interesting about hsbc is a last february, john flint took over as chief executive there, and there was a big shift to move into the asian markets more, get more of their business and make more profits from the asian markets and now they are making over 90% of their profits from asia, and that comes at a time when we are seeing this slowdown in

china, we are seeing the continued issues between the us and china in terms of these trade discussions and we don't know what happens past the much the first deadline but with those headlines, hsbc are still performing particularly well, really com pletely performing particularly well, really completely pivoting their business around and focusing on a region which has become under pressure within that time since february 2018 when they started this move. james, it is good to talk to you, thank you so much, james hughes at axitrader with the details from hsbc, and as you said, interesting timing given the trade spat between the us and china when the bank is focusing so much of its business on asian markets. go to our website, there is plenty of news there, including lots more in the banking sector, which banks do customers love or hate? a report from our personal finance correspondent on which banks have come top of an official survey of customer satisfaction. royal bank of scotla nd a ppa re ntly customer satisfaction. royal bank of scotland apparently ranking bottom. if you want to know more about our

twitter question, which is about the fashion industry and whether or not fast fashion can be solved, or the problem of fast fashion can be solved by charging a 1p levy on garments worn and produced by clothing retailers, tweet on that subject, plenty more to come. your're watching business live. our top story — in a exclusive interview with the bbc — the founder of huawei says his company won't cave into pressure from the us, despite their security concerns. now, many recent polls have shown that ethnic minorities tend to face extra hurdles when looking for a job. rare is a specialist recruitment company focussed on graduate—level recruitment in the uk, founded in 2005. their system works on what s called the contextual recruitment system, which uses data to place the achievements of disadvantaged students within their specific contexts. they have done this process for over

100,000 employment candidates. the company also runs a programme called target 0xbridge, which has helped 140 black british students to gain places at oxford and cambridge universities. with us is raph mokades, pronounced managing director and founder of rare. explain as clearly as you can what ra re explain as clearly as you can what rare does, how do you place candidates with companies? there are two bits of our company, the first bit, we find, develop and place candidates in elite graduate employment. the second part of our business, we produce software that helps graduate employers understand not just the helps graduate employers understand notjust the polish but the potential of all the candidates applying to them. most employers would say they would like to think

they do that already because a cv or an interview is a very blunt instrument, it will test a certain number of attributes and not get any of the context. an employer would say, of course i will look at whether they are a good cultural fit or what other things they may bring. how do you do that with your data and software? i don't think the softwa re and software? i don't think the software helps you look at cultural fit, and of course, that is very important. what we are really interested is in the measurement potential. in the graduate job market you don't have a huge number of data points from a cv, you might have their a—level grades, you might put some tests and, some psychometrics, numeracy, verbal, situationaljudgment, that psychometrics, numeracy, verbal, situational judgment, that sort psychometrics, numeracy, verbal, situationaljudgment, that sort of thing, but you don't even have their final performance at university because in the uk generally we apply for a graduatejob while because in the uk generally we apply for a graduate job while still studying. and so historically, the debate around graduate employment has been pretty low level. should we look at a—level grades or not? should we use tests or not? even thatis should we use tests or not? even that is better, i knew somebody and

i got thejob like that is better, i knew somebody and i got the job like that... but what we are saying is educational performance is quite a good measure if it is put in context. so, for example, if a candidate has two as and a example, if a candidate has two as andab example, if a candidate has two as anda bat example, if a candidate has two as and a b at a—level, you cannot deduce a lot, but if they have that ata deduce a lot, but if they have that at a school where the average grades we re at a school where the average grades were two ds and an e they have overachieved in an atmosphere where others were not doing it and they are probably quite resilient and quite gritty and smart. that is important to companies. why should a company want to employ more disadvantaged and ethnic minority people? why should they want to do that? there is quite a lot of evidence to suggest that if you do that you are going to make more money, bluntly. iwill quote that you are going to make more money, bluntly. i will quote two studies, one is one that we did internally looking at the top 50 law firms in england, divided them by

quartile in terms of profitability. the top quarter of firms by profitability had twice as much profitability had twice as much profit as the next quartile and they had about 22% of their staff from ba me as opposed to 15% in the next quarter. you take into account other factors ? quarter. you take into account other factors? we did, we also looked at employee satisfaction, we did not see a correlation there, and looked ata number of see a correlation there, and looked at a number of top ranked practice areas, ie quality, and we found that in terms of quality we also saw the correlation. looking at social disadvantage now, the bridge group published a report looking at 2000 lawyers and found a clear link between disadvantaged and outperformance. i'm looking through some of the other factors you take into account as part of that context, and it's fascinating, because you look at other things like their postcodes, where they are from, school quality, eligibility for free school meals, their refugee status, may be some time that has been spent on care. some would say all of those things are things you might want to put behind you and so

they have no bearing on who i am today, they have no influence on what i have achieved, i have achieved it despite those things but i don't want to carry those with me. is there a way to say, i don't want to ta ke is there a way to say, i don't want to take those into consideration? absolutely. firstly, you opt into sharing your data with us and secondly on each of those clearly whether you are in care is a more sensitive questions in which school you went to, there are three options, yes, no, prefer not to say, so the pre—populated area is prefer not to say and pursue lower response rates on the most sensitive questions than we do on the question of what school you went to. that said, generally, if you come from a seriously disadvantaged background, you will present differently. you won't have had the same access to work experience, you might not have the same level of shine or a gloss on your extracurriculars, and we have found that response rates are pretty high, in some cases over 90%, because people want a chance to be

considered on their merits and it is not a level playing field. raph mokades, thank you so much indeed, for joining mokades, thank you so much indeed, forjoining us to talk to us about rare. uk clothing brands and retailers should pay a penny on every garment they sell to fund a £35 million annual recycling scheme. that's the view of britain's mps, who say "fast fashion" is a major contributor to pollution. earlier i spoke to dilys williams from the london college of fashion, who say‘s the public‘s perception of fashion needs to change. it's a sad fact, isn't it? we are bombarded with lots of images of amazing things, and, yeah, new fashion is fantastic. but what we're doing at the moment is buying more than anybody else and wearing it less and chucking it away. so this model is broken and the report says that. it says that actually we need to completely change how we think about nature and each other because fashion comes from nature, it's made by people, and we can do it much better. we can do it far more differently and lots of new young designers are doing that already. dennis williams from the london

couege dennis williams from the london college of fashion. chris has rejoined us to talk about that. making money comes at a price, especially fast fashion, it may be pollution, mistreatment of workers in some cases. this proposal to add a penny to a government doesn't sound a lot. it sounds reasonable, 5p for a plastic bag so a penny on top ofan 5p for a plastic bag so a penny on top of an item if you are going to be paying a delivery charge of £2.50 and not blink, what is a penny if it makes such a difference? what is more interesting is the precedent it sets and the spotlight turns on the impact that fast fashion is having on the environment. it is a penny enough to make us think about it? already we said 5p enough to make us think about it? already we said sp to a carrier bag wasn't enough and they went up to 10p in the uk and other countries are doing the same thing. is 1p enough? some suggestions on media are that it should be £1. the figure itself is in some way secondary, the fa ct we itself is in some way secondary, the fact we are talking about it now, bit like when david attenborough talked about plastic in the oceans, all of a sudden plastic straws, and their impact. if we are discussing

it it is a start. i would agree that ip it it is a start. i would agree that 1p sounds arbitrary. the 1p make some for 35 million that they want to start a recycling programme of clothing. we have mr smith who says i take my clothes to the nation points when throwing them out, if we can pay a small charge to improve recycling, i don't see an issue. that really is the crux of it, isn't it? if you are worried about the environment and want to make a difference at this doesn't seem like an awful lot, and how much responsibility lies with the consumer and how much with the company? that's right. at the moment the onus is on the consumer in order to put their stuff through to get recycled, so if you can put it back on the businesses and incorporate into everyday practice as it makes things a lot easier. chris, thank you. nice to see you. that is it from us today. have a great day whatever you are up to. bye—bye. hello. the february temperature

record was set in 1998 when we saw a high of 19.7 celsius. whilst we may not break any records this week we are going to come close. increasingly mild if not warm air flooding up from africa as we head towards the end of the weekend into the weekend. while we may not see 19.7 celsius, somewhere is going to get to 17, maybe even 18 celsius. back to today and we are in between weather systems. this strip of cloud is yesterday's rain and this large mass of cloud in the atlantic will bring wet and windy weather into northern ireland through this afternoon. ahead of this we will keep some fairly frequent showers across western scotland and north—west england. the shower is a bit more scattered across wales and south—west england and by and large further south and east you are mainly dry with sunshine, should be a fine day for much of south—east england and east anglia but turning wet and windy from the west later in the afternoon. temperature —wise, 11 or 12 celsius for south—east england and east anglia after a cold and frosty start, eight or nine in

scotla nd frosty start, eight or nine in scotland and northern ireland. the wind strengthening all the while particularly as the rain starts to settle in, some stronger gusts across northern ireland and western isles of scotland, the range extends north and east woods this evening and overnight, heavy and persistent rain across north—west england and western scotland, mainly derived from the midlands southwards and it will not be as cold at night as the onejust gone, low will not be as cold at night as the one just gone, low is generally around six or seven celsius. the frontal system is still with us tomorrow, you can see it mainly affects the northern half of the uk, so still bringing outbreaks of rain, chiefly across scotland and northern england through the morning and the rain will turn more showery across northern ireland, some rain settling to parts of wales for a time in the morning but coming increasingly patchy. the driest of the weather the further south and east you are but a cloudy day compared to today. a little bit milder, though, 12 or 13 celsius with the wind is easing down slowly. as we go into thursday, for most it is a fine, dry day with a good deal of sunshine. a little bit more cloud across parts of

scotla nd bit more cloud across parts of scotland and northern ireland, cannot rule out a few showers for the western isles and north—west england but otherwise a dry day and increasingly mild, 13 or 14 celsius by thursday afternoon and that theme continues through friday and into the weekend, increasing amount of sunshine with temperatures into the high teens. bye—bye. you're watching bbc news at nine with me, annita mcveigh. the headlines... japanese car giant honda confirms it plans to shut its swindon factory in 2021 with the loss of 3,500 jobs, citing its need to invest in a changing marketplace. this is a move towards electric vacation which we had seen in europe and around the world. ——

electrification. a warning tojeremy corbyn that more labour mps could split from the party, after seven mps quit yesterday to form an indepdendent group. 16 us states are suing the trump administration after the us president declared an emergency to raise funds for a mexican border wall. researchers develop a new test could speed up the diagnosis of sepsis —