this is bbc news, the headlines... at least 4 people have been killed in a mass shooting in the us state of alabama. several others were injured in the incident at a teenage birthday party. two rival branches of sudan's armed forces, say they've agreed a brief humanitarian pause, in the fighting that erupted in khartoum on saturday. so far at least 70 people have been killed. the leader of the nurses�* union says they're prepared to continue strikes in england right up to christmas unless the government puts more money on the table for a pay deal.

the government says it is a reasonable offer. the chief minister of the indian state of uttar pradesh appeals for calm after a former politician convicted of kidnapping is shot dead live on tv along with his brother. now on bbc news — it's talking business. hello and welcome to talking business, with me, tadhg enright. let's have a look at what's on the show. can revenge spending save the world economy? after more than three years, lockdown is finally over for more than a billion people in china. they've had time to stash trillions of dollars�* worth of savings. are they about to spend it travelling the world? and what's that going to mean for the rest of us? i'll be getting the lowdown on revenge spending with this top team — steve odlan of the us conference board, tian lu from the economist intelligence unit in china, and gary barrowman, the man who literally wrote the book about

the chinese tourist. and now people have got places to go, are they going to bejewel themselves to go there? i'll be finding out from the boss of pandora, the biggestjewellery brand in the world. wherever you'rejoining me from around the world, once again a big hello and a warm welcome to the show. china was the first country to lock people down due to covid, and now it's one of the last to ease restrictions. following anti—lockdown protests late last year, president xi finally ended his zero—covid policy, opening up cities and travel once more. that reopening was underlined in the last few weeks

by president xi welcoming european leaders, including france's president emmanuel macron, to the country, and also rising tensions around its dispute with taiwan — the chinese military staging a show of strength over the island beijing still claims as its own. but after three years of lockdowns, testing and a new ban on travel, economists are predicting a tide of cash could be released by china's consumers. in fact, the sums are so significant, the international monetary fund improved its outlook for the global economy. the potential revenge spending pot is huge, with chinese households racking up over $2.5 trillion in extra savings in 2022. that's an increase of around 80%. that increase in savings alone is about the same size as the entire economy of italy last year. but will the chinese consumer spend it? revenge spending has certainly been seen after lockdowns in other countries. in 2021, it was estimated

that american consumers were spending on average an extra $750 a month. if anyone can tell us how that played out, it's the boss of the us conference board. it compiles some of the most trusted research on the american consumer as well as insights on china. steve 0dland, how did revenge spending pan out in the usa? well, coming out of covid you saw consumer balance sheets that were swollen, lots of cash provided by that savings that had happened when they couldn't spend, but also government stimulus. and you saw the spending on goods surge. now we're coming off of that and you're seeing the services come back, and so the revenge spending continues in the service sector while the goods sector tapers off here. we're not quite back to pre—covid spending levels in the service sector, so we should see a little bit more of that continue here into this year and a normalisation.

we've had lots of things contributing to inflation — the energy crisis, labour shortages. how much blame do you put on revenge spending? well, you know, when you lock it down and you're producing nothing, all supply chains collapsed for a period of time, there was no supply. and so you had all this demand and all this money chasing too few goods and no services. so, you know, it's a complete imbalance between supply and demand, and that has created an enormous amount of this inflation, on top of the government spending and easy money policies both here in the united states but also around the world. and so you had all this money chasing too little supply and of course the inflation comes in. now it's the reverse, as interest rates are rising, the cost of debt and the cost of money has increased and so you see now a tilt towards a recessionary period.

the conference board predicts that from about now until the end of the year we should see a short, relatively short, shallow recession, as interest rates tamp down that demand and supply catches up. do you think it's over, that the revenge spending era is over in the united states now? well, it's still a rebound in services, as people continue to try to catch up here. but it's pretty much coming to an end, and if we go into this shallow recession, that should put a complete end to it, tadhg. you know, it's really run its course, i think. 0k, well, let's cross the world now to china. what does your research see happening there right now? well, china's a whole different kettle of fish, of course, because china took a different approach to the covid situation. they have had lockdowns now for three years, and we have seen this on television every single day with whole cities locked down.

post the congress here in the fall they have changed their policy and they all have opened up now, but you still have this residual effect. revenge spending is completely under way in china as consumers come back to the market. of course spending on housing is down. there is a housing crisis a bit in china, but from a goods and services standpoint the consumer is back in china. and do american businesses, international businesses, think they are going to benefit from this chinese chapter of revenge spending? western multinational companies who have a business in china, in other words serving the domestic markets, will certainly benefit from this revenge spending, or the rebound spending happening in china. it's unclear whether that will translate to the export market. so mncs exporting to western

nations and other areas of the world probably will not because you have the reverse effect. you have recession starting in north america, obviously the uk and germany, russia and ukraine, so it's really a domestic market focus right now in china. do you think this chinese chapter could help the economic picture, perhaps save us from recession or make them not as painful in europe and the us? from a global standpoint, we don't think the entire global economy will reproach recession. it should grow in the 2.5% range, which is quite low from a global perspective. we think china will be around 5%. 0ur projections are a little over 5%. if the focus and the demand is in the domestic markets,

it is not going to save the local markets or the regional markets in the west, thatjust isn't going to happen, so i'm afraid that the uk, germany, the united states are going to have to go through these recessions, most likely because of the inflation and the central bank's attempt to tamp that inflation back down. steve 0dland, thank you very much. that's the view from america, but what can we learn from people on the ground? let's go to beijing and the managing directorfor greater china for the economist group, qian lu. welcome to the programme. you are in beijing. is there an atmosphere of revenge spending in the air there right now? absolutely. the economic recovery in china post—covid has beenjust impressive, but the more fundamental question is, how sustainable is this? we at the economist intelligence unit are looking at china's gdp growth to be 5.7% this year, much higher than the government

target of around 5%. in fact, the 5.7 already points to the fact that china will contribute to one third of the entire global economic growth this year, so that is quite impressive. that is a very significant contribution to the world economy. qian, are chinese consumers more interested right now in spending at home, or are they also looking to spend abroad once again? the question is both, but we need to look at the short term and a bit of the longer term. so for the short term, especially this year, the absent majority would be domestic spending, but going forward, especially when it comes to tourism and travel, outbound, that will start to pick up but most likely from the latter half of 2024. in the rest of the world of course we're dealing with a pretty dire cost of living crisis, and i wonder if chinese consumers are looking at what is happening elsewhere and that's adding to that sense

of the lack of confidence? very good question, but the truth is, actually, especially with the higher energy prices causing the pinch in inflation especially in europe and the us, they are not so much affecting china. with the russian—ukrainian war, with the rising oil prices, a lot of western countries are suffering big time for it, but not so much in china. one key factor is within china's inflation basket, oil is not a major part of it. the most interesting bit to watch for chinese inflation is the prices of pigs, so it's really for pork, really, and specifically the tip of the rear of the pigs because chinese people just love to eat pork. that comprises a big part of the basket. all the china analysts, when we look at chinese inflation, we pay very close attention to the cycles

of the pork prices, so at the moment they tend to be not on the peak cycles so that is definitely helping with chinese inflation. i must say i did not expect pigs�* rear ends to feature in this conversation. let�*s talk a little bit more about the employment situation. young people are having issues with getting secure employment, the kind of employment they can feel confident to go out spending with, what is the reality of the situation on the ground there? that is a very good question and an important one and unfortunately the unemployment rate is much higher than before. before we had 3%, 4%, but now the number is 6% or 7%. and that is only registered urban unemployment so the overall total unemployed in china could easily be more than 10%. and also with these numbers, if we break them down by different age cohort and regions, we see

for youth, their unemployment is about 18%. so if we compare that with the rest of the world, we're still talking about the second largest economy growing at close to 6% while when we look at the world overall we are expecting the world to be growing at 2%, so 6% is phenomenal, right? so it is all relative. lam only i am only comparing chinese disposable income by 4% to 6%, and 4% is_ disposable income by 4% to 6%, and 4% is still_ disposable income by 4% to 6%, and 4% is still an — disposable income by 4% to 6%, and 4% is still an impressive number. people still have the confidence but not as much as before. and also, how sustainable is this confidence? is there in china a recognition, do you think, among ordinary consumers, ofjust how powerful they are in a global context? well, chinese consumers realise the weight and importance of them. but i think the potential space for chinese consumers is much

higher than they probably already realise. chinese private consumption's ratio to gdp is 36% only — when you compare that ratio to the us, which is 70%. so the importance of chinese consumers, whether to domestic suppliers or international supplies, will continue to grow. thank you very much. travel is one of the biggest areas in which we�*re expecting to see a big increase. before pandemic, chinese globetrotters where the largest group of international tourists in the world. but are they set to make a return, and where will they go? i�*ve been speaking to the director of the tourism intelligence specialist, check—in asia, also the author of the book the new chinese traveler, gary bowerman from check—in asia. just remind us how much of a big deal chinese tourists were becoming for the rest of the world before

the pandemic? hi, thank you for- having me on the show. incredibly important. one in nine international. travellers around the world in 2019 carried a chinese passport _ it was the world's largest. outbound tourism market, about 166 million outbound trips from china in 2019. i and of course it was also - the world's largest—spending tourism nation. and now that chinese borders are open again, what evidence are we seeing that there is just as much of a wanderlust among chinese travellers? i i think that is a good questionl because it has been quite slow. the borders opened at i the beginning ofjanuary and there was this expectation it would simply be press - and play and chinese travellers would start travelling again - and everything would be back to normal. i it hasn't been like that. three years of the pandemic- and the disruption has impacted chinese consumer sentiment and the chinese travel- industry considerably. of course it has impacted . the chinese airline industry. so it has taken time -

for chinese airlines to scale back up and be able to offer the flights and services - for chinese travellers to be able to travel again. - i think the travel industry. expects that the second half of this year you will start - to see a real uplift in chinese travellers travelling outbound around the world once again. | remind us of the state of play. what kind of restrictions remain on chinese travellers going abroad in terms of testing, etc? yes, good question. when china reopened its - borders, if you remember, back in january, it was the only country in the world - at the time to reopen| in the midst of a huge infection wave of covid—19, the biggest wave china had seen. i several countries around i the world actually instituted straightaway testing precautions for- chinese travelling . into their countries. the uk was one of those, japan, korea, australia, i the us as well. most of those have been lifted i over time because the infection curves in china have dissipated

and it has fallen _ away considerably. but china itself does actually still stipulate some - rules on outbound travel. independent travellers - from china can travel anywhere they like, but group. travellers, tour group travellers, they are more restricted. i currently there are 60 - countries around the world that are permitted to receive - chinese group tour travellers, and currently the uk is not one of those. i where are chinese travellers looking to go right now? are they still staying at home more than we did before the pandemic, or are they starting to look overseas again? the first thing that recovered in the first three months - since china reopened for travel and tourism, domestically - and internationally, l is domestic tourism. it has really rebounded quite quickly. - we are starting to see a lot of search activityj on the chinese outbound tourism booking sites, and interest- at the moment seems to be mostly in asia pacific, - southeast asia is quite strong, japan, korea, i

australia and new zealand. those would be expected i think in the first few months - of people taking their first trips once again. - they want to go with what is familiar, close to home, - not travelling too far, _ and also remember at the moment flight prices around the world are still quite high— and that is a disincentive for long—haul travel. - as the year progresses i think we will see - patterns are starting to change a little. i we will see more long—haul. travel from china but for sure this year, 2023, will be - a recovery year of outbound travel from china and i think the beneficiaries will- definitely be the countries of asia pacific. _ when it comes to long—haul destinations, do you think it�*s going to be the old favourites, the parises, the londons, the new yorks, or are new destinations coming into vogue? i think a bit of both. i think for sure those - destinations you said will be popular, the us as well — new york, los angeles. i i think you'll be looking. at countries in europe that

were probably a little less touristed before, like - the czech republic, serbia, montenegro, albania, - bulgaria. they have been marketing quite hard to the chinese. market during the pandemic and since china reopened. l they're actually showing they really want chinesej travellers to come back. but it will come down to flight access, the ability to be - able to get the flightl at the price you want. i do think when the chinese fly in to cities like london, - paris or madrid they probably will travel a little further - afield in those countries than they did before, i just to explore destinations in those countries that - are new to them, where they can actually access new cultures, - cuisines, experiences, that kind of thing. - i think everywhere in . asia pacific, you know, we were hit so hard _ with the pandemic and it lasted so long, the travellers had. a long time to really rethink what travel means to them in future, and the chinese i are no different to that. they want to explain new things they haven't been able to do - for the last three years. what about the uk market,

how important is it? it is a mixed one, if you go back to 2019, it was less . than a million chinese, i about 900,000 chinese visitors to the uk. it was growing, but china wasn't a top ten inboundl source market for the uk, it was number 13 in 2019.| but it was the second highest in terms of per person- spend, it was number two. you see that in most - countries around the world, china tends to outspend most other countries when it - visits in large numbers. if you were advising tourism industry bosses around the world how to appeal to chinese tourists, what would you be telling them to do? rethink absolutely everything. everything you learned before the pandemic, rethink it. - the chinese consumer economy, the chinese domestic travel- economy, has changed considerably over-

the past three years. trends, technology — i particularly technology because chinese travellers are very tech savvy, - very ai, very virtual, i very metaverse savvy, so they're looking for - experiences that take them into the real world of course but in terms of marketing. they are very adept - at mobile technologies. you also have to get rid - of this view that there is such a thing as a chinese traveller. there is no typical chinese traveller. | it is a huge country, a huge market. - the chinese outbound market spans absolutely everything. i gary bowerman, thank you very much. we have been talking about revenge spending and how consumers have been spending savings built up during the pandemic, in particular in china, where more than a billion consumers have come out of three years of on and off lockdown. are they ready to spend of lot of their lockdown cash on jewellery? pandora is one of the biggest brands in the sector in the world and its chief executive, alexander

lacik, joins me now. alexander, you are about to relaunch your brand in china. what do you see as the potential there for pandora? pandora has been present in the market since 2010, had a kind of rebirth in 2015 which didn�*t go down that well, so we have been kind of waiting to relaunch the brand, and of course the last few years have been plagued by the restrictions around the pandemic. so traffic into the stores have been very minimal. we have been kind of sitting a bit on the sidelines waiting for the market to normalise. the perspective on why we are doing this, china is the largestjewellery market in the world, and we believe pandora has a very good chance to play well in china. we have stores in roughly 70 cities so i would say our penetration is rather basic at this stage in the game but we need to kind of plan the roots of the brand then we can expand this further. are you seeing signs of revenge spending in china right now? not really.

when the pandemic unfolded in europe we saw much more of a comeback from consumers here. in china what we have been experiencing is more of a slower return. you know, when we were locked down for a while of course some of our customers migrated to the e—commerce business, butjewellery in general, notjust for pandora, i believe, is a business where customers want to come in, they want to try it on, look and see how the jewellery fits them. so the physical aspect of the business is quite important. so i think there was some pent—up demand when people had been locked up for a while and we kind of saw that be quite strong across europe right after the pandemic, and of course then it normalised after that. so whether that was revenge spending or people just kind of wanting to get out of their houses, i don�*t know. and outside of china, how are things holding up?

is the cost of living crisis eating into consumers�* budgets? yeah, we have had this macro fear in kind of touching the consumer wallet for i think well over a year by now with various different aspects of it. last year i believe our category fared relatively well. we grew our business by 7% in 2022. so we kind of stood quite strong. the other aspect i think it is important to remember in particularfor the pandora case, a lot of our products are bought to be used as gifts to celebrate birthdays and other things, so that puts a level of resilience into the business. so actually so far we are quite pleased with what we are seeing. are people still buying jewellery? perhaps less expensive items? we look at the level of traffic, which has been very healthy in the last 12—18 months. we convert at a very

good level. we can see the basket size and the average selling price is rather stable, so maybe some of that comes from other brands trading down. i really don�*t know. but as i mentioned last year we had 7% growth, and it appears we have a very good proposition here in tough times. the way we try to talk about the brand is that we are an affordable luxury brand, and of course if somebody has a birthday i think we did make the average price for a charm is £40, or £50, so that can be compared to a dinner, cinema ticket, bouquet of flowers, so we are in the affordable zone i think that will be a reason why it is holding up so well. i know it is only april but i�*m sure you are already thinking about christmas. how do you see this year being different? well, i have been with pandora

now for four years and this will be my fifth christmas. each year has been a very different construct with the pandemics and inflation, the wars and what have you, so it is probably going to be different. ijust don�*t know what it is. we are getting ready with interesting innovation, interesting retail experiences that we offer and that is the controllables we have so let�*s see what the macro brings, but we are ready for different scenarios of course. alexander lacik, thank you very much forjoining us on talking business. that�*s it for this week, i hope you enjoyed the show. don�*t forget you can keep up with the latest on our global economy on the bbc website or the smartphone app. you can follow me on social media, i�*m @tadhg enright. thank you for watching. i will see you soon, bye—bye.

hello. after some sunshine for many of us yesterday, today is a much cloudier affair and that cloud is still thick enough this afternoon for some patchy light rain and drizzle, particularly the further west you are, never really amounting to much. the earlier mist and fog is cleared from eastern coastlines and here, some spells of sunshine. so really, it�*s a day of contrasts across the uk, fairly grey and gloomy where we�*ve got the thick cloud, but also some sunshine coming through. and where it does, it should feel a little bit warmer than it has done recently. so, this is how the rest of the afternoon shapes up. a lot of cloud across the uk. the best of the breaks the further east you are. as i mentioned, we could still catch some light rain or drizzle for more western areas where the sun does come through. temperatures potentially getting up to 15 or 16 celsius, but more like the low teens where we keep that cloud cover. so, on through this evening and overnight, and once again, that cloud will tend to thicken up and we could see some outbreaks of rain developing along the spine of the country through parts of east anglia, southeast england, too, as well. won�*t be quite as chilly as it was last night.

temperatures generally holding up to between four and eight celsius. so this is how we start the new week. high pressure is firmly in charge and we�*re going to keep that for much of the week. could see some changes towards thursday and friday, but where last week was fairly wet and often windy, the week ahead is looking drier. there�*ll be some spells of sunshine for all of us, and at first feeling a little bit warmer. but a lot of cloud around to start the day on monday. still some outbreaks of rain through parts of central and southeast england should see some spells of sunshine developing for many, but also keeping an eye on this band of cloud moving in from the north sea and may turn things quite dull and gloomy for some eastern coasts. in sunshine, temperatures up to 16, maybe even 17 celsius, always somewhat cooler or exposed to the breeze off the north sea. and as we head from monday into tuesday, we see we�*re still get that area of high pressure. but notice how the isobars start to come close together. so we start to develop more of an easterly wind as we head through tuesday and wednesday. but tuesday should bring a good deal of sunshine, a bit more cloud developing through parts of east anglia,

south east england through the day. but notice the strength of the wind. i think we�*ll all feel the strength of that easterly wind, particularly for east—facing coasts. so further west is probably where we�*ll see the highest temperatures in the west of the sunshine, may just be 12 or 13 celsius for some eastern coast. and then really for the rest of the week, it�*s mainly dry, but we could see some rain developing through thursday and friday across most southern areas. bye— bye.

live from london, this is bbc news. four people have been killed and others injured in a shooting at a teenage birthday party in alabama. two rival branches of sudan�*s armed forces say they�*ve agreed a brief humanitarian pause in the fighting that erupted in khartoum on saturday. so far at least 70 people have been killed. the leader of the nurses�* union in england says they�*re prepared to hold strikes until christmas, unless more money is offered. appeals for calm after a former indian politician, convicted of kidnapping, is shot dead on live tv — along with his brother. the building of new so—called smart motorways in england is being cancelled over safety concerns and costs.