this is bbc news, the headlines: a week on from the devastating earthquakes in turkey and syria, over 33,000 people are known to have been killed. the un says it expects that number to double. remarkably, survivors are still being pulled from the rubble. another aid convoy has crossed into rebel—held north—west syria. the us military has shot down an unidentified flying object above lake huron, the third such object shot down in as many days. pentagon officials said an assessment was made that the objects were not military threats, but that they had taken action out of an "abudance of caution". thousands of homes are without power in new zealand as cyclone gabrielle makes its way across the country's north island. a state of emergency has been

declared in five regions, including auckland, as strong winds and heavy rain have brought down trees and damaged power lines. now on bbc news, talking business. hello, everybody. a very warm welcome to talking business weekly with me, aaron heslehurst. let's go take a look at what's on the show. the cities that went to sleep for the pandemic are waking up, but how much are the world's great metropolises bouncing back and can they ever get back to where they were? with hybrid and remote working still in place in much of the world, what is the impact on our great cities, their restaurants, economies and property prices? i'm going to be discussing all of that with these two. dr megan walters, global head of research at allianz real estate, and julian metcalfe, the big boss of the asian food chain itsu. plus, i sit down with yuriko koike, the governor of tokyo, to get her view

on how one of the world's great capitals is faring after the olympics and the pandemic. and if that wasn't enough, we've got the global boss of christie's who talks dealing with antiques, technology and real people in real auctions now the art world is back. wherever you'rejoining me from around the world, once again, a big hello and a warm welcome to the show. you know, for well over 100 years, the move of people from the countryside to the city has been unstoppable. lured byjobs, money and opportunity, global megacities with millions of people have sprung to life but in march 2020, that came to a grinding halt on almost every city on the planet.

as the covid pandemic crossed borders, those who lived in tightly packed, dense cities were at the greatest risk of catching and passing on the virus. every major metropolis had some kind of lockdown. busy streets, shops, offices, restaurants and theatres were shuttered as people stayed indoors, turning to online and remote working. others like medical and other essential staff still went to work. but the closing of office space hit notjust those working in them, but also the people who made their lunches, brewed their coffees and poured their after—work drinks. while debates about restrictions on liberty raged among politicians, perhaps it was the governor of new york who put the reasons for the lockdowns most blatantly to his city. my mother is not expendable. and your mother is not expendable. and our brothers and sisters are not expendable. and we are not going to accept a premise that human life is disposable.

and many people didn't just work from home, they left the city they lived in often to go somewhere a bit cheaper and with more space. so how are our cities coming back? here in london, office occupancy is roughly where it was before the pandemic but only on certain days of the week. in december, numbers showed that around half of office spaces was occupied on a thursday, a little less than the pre—pandemic average at 60%. but that fell sharply on a friday atjust15%, reflecting that many office workers now come in from tuesday to thursday. in new york, the number of people riding the subway is averaging around 60% of the pre—pandemic level. and injapan, sales at department stores, they are recovering but they are still around 11% lower than their pre—pandemic level. so what has all of that been doing to property prices in the centres of our big cities and what can it tell us about how our cities are changing? allianz real estate manages

office spaces in 47 cities across north america, europe, shanghai and singapore. so i caught up with its head of global research. dr megan walters, a real pleasure having you with us. let's start with this, quite simply put, how are cities bouncing back? thanks, aaron. look, the pandemic changed how we work, how we live and how we shop, so let's just start with shopping. e—commerce was a huge lifeline for many of us during the pandemic but increasingly, people want to go back to shops, so a recent survey of 20,000 global consumers showed seven out of ten want to view product in shops. a bit more in the us, a bit less in asia—pacific where they are willing to shop online. in terms of living, one of the biggest changes we saw was actually in the us. between march 2020 and february 2021 during the pandemic, we saw close to 3 million people leave some of the higher density cities and actually move to what we call the sunbelt cities, places like austin, dallas, miami and phoenix, in search of a lower cost of living

and better weather. what is really interesting is since then, two things, first of all, people have stayed in those sunbelt cities. you can see things like high—frequency data such as restaurant bookings remain above pre—pandemic in those lovely cities. but also, interestingly, people are returning to high—density cities. so, for example, residential rents in new york are back above pre—pandemic levels and we've got residential rents rising in other global cities, london, singapore, berlin, sydney and milan. this is very much showing that people are staying in cities. that brings us to how we work which is probably the biggest single change out of the pandemic. hybrid working, probably here to stay, and what it means for cities in an era of hybrid working is the footprint of cities actually gets bigger. if you only have to go to the office one, two,

three days a week, you might choose to live much further out and then commute in. so in an era of hybrid working, the footprint for these big cities gets even bigger and even more important. so, we've mentioned hybrid working and how that impacts on companies but it's a tricky one, because at the end of the day, companies still need the office, even if it's just for part of the week. that's exactly right. about 70% of employers say the office is absolutely central to their ecosystem, for socialisation, for gathering employees together. so although people might be in the office slightly less frequently, it's surprisingly difficult for corporations to give back space. what we think will happen in terms of hybrid working is there is a change of what happens inside the offices. so historically, individual desks probably made up 60% of floor areas inside offices and meeting rooms more like a0%. moving forward, what is much

more likely to happen is that individual workspaces will fall right back to maybe 30% and the space for collaboration and meetings will increase to more like 50%. megan, let me end on this, what has all of this meant for property valuations? well, let's take an example of somewhere like london, which is an interesting city because we've got three office markets there broadly. we've got the west end office market, so that's the area around mayfair, oxford street, bond street. we've got the city of london around the bank of england, then we've got canary wharf out on the east side. if you look at the vacancy rates in those different office areas, so in the west end, where there are bars and shops and theatres, you have the lowest vacancy rates, just 4—6%. in the city of london, which is more traditional, 8—10% vacancy, and in the very office—heavy end at canary wharf, sort of 15—17% vacancy. what it is showing is we have demand for offices in some of the areas where

people want to go. what holds up property valuations is the rents that people want to pay, so super prime, premium rents are holding up, people very much want those sorts of offices and so that is supporting those sorts of capital values. so we see the super premium offices probably have a 20% premium over more traditional standard offices. during the pandemic, rents actually held up surprisingly well, people continued to pay their rent. the other component for property values is interest rates. recently we have seen a spike in interest rates. what that does is it tends to depress the value of real estate, so rent divided by your cap rate or your interest rate gives you your capital value, so it's interest rates rises that tend to depress the value of offices. but it's a really mixed picture. as i say, super prime offices in the hearts of cities, values are holding up extremely well. it's the secondary grade

offices perhaps with worse energy ratings that we see will probably suffer the most. megan, let me end on this, a prediction. five years�* time, will we be in our city centres more or less? i think we're in our city centres more. i think people want to come together to socialise. the draw of cities actually gets bigger in the era of hybrid working. if people don't have to go to the city centre so much for work, they are more likely to come in to socialise. i think the great goal for cities, instead of having central business districts, we need central socialisation districts. mixed—use developments that everyone can enjoy. on that note, dr megan walters, a real pleasure having you with us. thank you for your time. i'll talk to you soon. thank you. just before the pandemic locked the world's cities down, my next guest was talking about opening 100 new restaurants around the world and he knows how to do it as well. his first chain of restaurants, pret a manger, redefined lunch for office workers in mega cities across the planet.

his next venture, the asian inspired restaurant itsu, it's opened across the uk and it has a small footprint in europe. its new york restaurant closed during covid. so how has the current state of the world's cities impacted on his plans for global expansion? julian metcalfe, it's great to have you on the show. let's start with this, simply put, how did covid and the closing of offices hit your business? it hit itsu much the same way it hit a great many businesses, particularly hospitality. well, infact, everybody. it's like other hospitality businesses in the sense that as the cities slowly fill up, itsu is thriving. we were lucky that a great many itsus were feeding people outside the great cities and in many of the big towns, and they remained very busy as they opened up. it almost seems like a decade ago, 2020, february, doesn't it?

we've moved on. and for many people they're operating their business lives differently but the cities are definitely filling up. julian, before covid you had big global expansion plans. how did you have to change those? well, covid put a stop on everything for a great many of us, but now we are opening a second and third itsu in paris, france. we're opening, hopefully about to start building in brussels, belgium, a second itsu. and we are talking of planning to open in germany and other countries in europe, so we are still going well. we are very fortunate. what about north america? north america was a classic... situation in the sense we had a landlord there who would not let us off any rent for two years. new york landlords are famously

very demanding, so after two years of paying full rent, we gave up the keys, tragically, sadly, but we will go back into north america when the time is right. but no, covid destroyed that. just briefly, when will that time be right, do you think? i think next, probably at the end of next year. once we have a break from opening in other european countries, we will go back into america. america, the whole of america is in dire need of nutritious, affordable food at the right price. as we all know, anybody who has travelled in america knows it is very much reliant on fried, fast food and that needs to change, but that is much easier said than done. on that point, julian metcalfe, a real pleasure having you on the show. good luck with everything and i will check in with you soon.

0ne city that has seen people returning to its pre—covid levels is tokyo. i sat down with the city's governor just to find out how one of the world's greatest cities is bouncing back. a real pleasure having you on my show. you are now open for tourists which is wonderful. but are you concerned about those tourists bringing back covid with them? the situation in tokyo is fine and secured. 0ursituation, medical situation is stable. we would like to have more inbound tourists to enjoy tokyo. tokyo, everybody thinks of tokyo as one of the greatest cities on the planet. it has a long and storied history but surely the pandemic would have been one of the big tough points, if you will,

in its history. i'm just wondering, as governor, what were some of the toughest challenges you had to make? as you know, we have a big, big population with 14 million and a pandemic attack, so we suffered quite a lot because we had to prepare for the 2020 olympic and paralympic games, and covid—i9. but we could do it, thanks to your cooperation and the athletes and, well, so many people were involved but they committed nicely and we could do that. i think the games offered such a positive manner and to change the way of thinking, yes. the games certainly did that. yuriko, how close is tokyo now to how it was before the pandemic? yes, tokyo is very active as before.

we are asking people to enjoy sustainable recovery, rather than ordinary recovery because during three years�* time under the pandemic, we have learned about the teleworking and digital working and remote work, so people's way of thinking and also the lifestyle has been changed in three years. yuriko, you once did thisjob — myjob! you were one of the financial news presenters injapan. but when you were doing that, tokyo didn't have as much competition in terms of other city centres being big financial hubs. what are you doing to get tokyo back onto the stage

as the financial hub of your region? that is why i am here in london and promoting tokyo as an initiative, as an international hub in asia in order to revitalise the market in tokyo. i think, well, when i was a news presenter — financial news — actually, the japanese economy was enjoying a bubble. but i thinkjapan and tokyo can resume its power by... as a financial centre? as a financial centre and by digitalisation and inviting more youngsters from abroad with the talent and also think tanks are really invited to tokyo. governor yuriko koike, a real pleasure having you on the show. thank you so much for your time.

arigato gozaimashita. good luck with everything. today, we have been looking at how the world's biggest cities are coming back after covid. christie's london — it's the largest auction house in the world. it is active in 46 countries with showrooms in ten and boy, the pandemic was one of the company's toughest challenges in its 257—year history. i popped into its london headquarters to catch up with its big boss. guillaume cerutti, a real pleasure having you on my show. thank you for your time. we have been looking at the impact the pandemic has had on the big cities around the world. you have offices in some of the larger cities on the planet. i'm wondering, guillaume, how did you pivot christie's during what was a horrible time? that's a great question and thank you, aaron, for having me today. 2020 was a tough year with the covid and we closed our offices. we needed a few months to pivot to online auctions. right.

and the rebound was really impressive at the end of 2020 and at the end of 2021. so, it took us a few months to change and modernise our business model, to accelerate our investment in digital. 2021 was a record year. 2022 was an even better year. the bounce—back has been rather phenomenal. yes, absolutely, because of this move towards online sales and also because it's a period of time when we have seen an influx of new clients. so, developing our online sales has helped enormously to engage with a new audience — millennials, especially in asia, very impressive. at christie's in 2021 and 2022, more than 30% of our clients were new to christie's. oh, wow. and one third of these were millennials. which of your global offices has changed the most? i'm wondering where you are seeing people are returning. and the flip side — where people are staying away?

we have four major auction sites — london, new york, paris and hong kong. all of these auction rooms i've seen the same phenomenon, you know, moving towards more online sales but still, live auctions, especially for higher value lots, sold in live auction, people want to see the works in the flesh. so, for higher value, still live auction predominately. but in every auction room, we have seen a move towards more online sales. the most impressive probably is in asia. because the effects of covid were longer — for instance, in shanghai, we have discontinued our sales. probably in asia, the pivoting towards online has been stronger. people are returning to cities, so what are you doing to take advantage of that, to embrace the return? we are opening our galleries before auctions. we have a few days where we are open free of charge for anyone to come

and visit us. we are trying to engage with new generations of collectors and people. in london and new york we have christie's late. once a month we are opening until late in the evening and we develop there exhibitions, shows, talks with our specialists or with guests. it's a lively place. i love to mention this example — last year, we sold this incredible collection from paul allen. paul allen was one of the co—founders of microsoft. we sold his wonderful collection in new york last yearfor more than $1.6 billion. oh, my lord! it was the most record—breaking sale ever. before the sale, we welcomed at christie's more than 35,000 people around the world, seeing, you know, highlights from this collection. in london, in paris, in asia, in new york, 35,000 people came to see these artworks, this wonderful collection, free.

so, have you seen a change in the taste of what people are buying and selling because of the pandemic? in 2020, during the pandemic, during the most difficult moment of the pandemic, we have seen successful sales of design, for instance. people were at home and were buying pieces of furniture or pieces of design probably because they were at home and they were buying for their home. they had more time probably to think about their interiors. you know, that was something that happened in 2020. since then... and people had more money too, right? probably more money to spend, yes. but that said, for the last ten years, there is a tendency towards more and more contemporary and luxury goods. "luxury" means jewels, watches, handbags, wine. contemporary art is contemporary art but in very different definitions — photos, for instance, design, paintings,

of course, sculpture — what you see in this room — so that is where the new collectors are primarily buying. with all these online sales, i'm curious as a layman, i'm looking over your shoulder, there is a painting that is priced at £3.5 million to £5 million. if that went for £5 million, which is probably, what, with the exchange rate $5.5, nearly $6 million, and i'd buy that and i am in sydney, australia, how do you get that to me? i'm thinking the security around transportation of that must be phenomenal. yeah, we will provide you with solutions. we have shippers we work with, we have insurers we work with, and we will ship it for you. with security? of course, of course — in secure cargoes. we are working with a network of companies that ship artworks around the world.

that's what we do. you mentioned china and we know that christie's is the — and correct me if i'm wrong here — only international auction house authorised to sell on the mainland. now, we know china — finally — is pretty much opening up but during all of those lockdowns, when it had that zero covid mentality policy, that must have been a big impact on your business. yes, of course. i mean, in shanghai, for instance, which is very important in terms of image for us and for recruiting new clients in mainland china, we had to discontinue the sales. of course, it was a loss from this point of view. but the online sales — and our ability to sell from hong kong as well, where there are a lot of chinese buying there too — that has helped us to overcome the situation. the chinese are back buying? yes, i was there in november. it is possible now to travel more usually in asia, especially hong kong,

the main hub for auctions and the art world in asia. we are hoping this spring that we will see an even bigger opening of the region and yes, we are counting on a rebound in may, when we have our main sales in hong kong. and just before i shake your hand, you've put these items in here for this interview. which one can i take? which one are you going to give me? this one. look at the power of this. it's phenomenal. cecily brown. it is expressionist, colourful, the power of this painting on the wall is amazing. isn't it? you cannot choose between all of these paintings but this one is really the one i would pick up. that is again £3.5 million to £5 million. all i need now is a wall big enough to put it on! guillaume cerutti, a real pleasure. thank you so much for your time. good luck for everything. that is it for this week.

don't forget, you can keep up with the latest on the global economy on the bbc website or the smartphone app. and you can follow me on twitter. tweet me. i will tweet you back! thank you for watching, i will see you soon. bue—bye. bye— bye. hello there. the weather was pretty disappointing with regards to sunshine amounts over the weekend. many places did stay rather grey and cloudy. now we start the new week off with high pressure still nearby and with more of a breeze, we could see more sunshine around. so that will make it feel a little bit warmer. but then the second half of this upcoming week will turn more unsettled. the weather fronts and low pressure systems out

in the atlantic start to make inroads as our area of high pressure begins to pull away. now, monday starts off fairly cloudy, some sunshine in the north, but with this breeze coming up from the south, it should break up the clouds more. so we should see more sunshine around across england and wales. a little bit of cloud for the east coast of england may be around the north channel, but some good sunny spells through the afternoon. temperatures responding up to 12 or 13 degrees, but double figures across the board so very mild this time of february. for tuesday, our area of high pressure still brings a lot of dry, unsettled weather. but this first weather front starts to make inroads across scotland and northern ireland. that'll bring more cloud and a few showers. 0urairsource coming in from iberia. so it's going to be very mild, quite a fresh breeze as well. so, again, we shouldn't see any problems with too much cloud around. could start a bit foggy across the far south east where winds will be lightest to begin with. it'll clear, though, as the winds pick up, plenty of sunshine for england and wales, a bit cloudier for scotland, northern ireland with one or two showers but very mild. could be up to 15 degrees in

north wales with some shelter from the southerly breeze. then as we head into wednesday, a more substantial frontal system starts to work its way into scotland and northern ireland. some heavy rain there for a time, followed by some blustery showers. this band of rain will weaken as it moves across england and wales, barely anything on it. and on either side we should continue to see some sunshine. it'll be very mild in the south east, 14 degrees there, but even 9 to 12 further north. and then for the end of the week, thursday and friday look more unsettled with rain at times and some strong winds, too. one area of low pressure pushes through on thursday, followed by a deeper system on friday that will bring some rain and some gales to the north and the west. initially, it'll scoop up some very mild air across england and wales before the cooler, wetter, windy weather spreads southwards later on friday. so an unsettled end to this new week. but for both days, it's going to remain pretty mild.

this is bbc news — welcome if you're watching here in the uk or around the globe. i'm anjana gadgil. our top stories: over 33,000 people are now known to have died in the earthquakes in turkey and syria, but a week after the disaster, survivors are still being pulled from the rubble. we report from inside syria, where the united nations says many people feel forgotten. these were people's homes. they were newly built. but look at it now. 80% of this village is gone, and they have had hardly any help. the us military shoots down another unidentified flying object — the third in as many days. and victory for the kansas city chiefs, who have beaten the philadelphia eagles

in america's biggest sporting event, the super bowl.