we'll look at the biggest issue on the table interest rates. plus — with the new chief of bangladesh's central bank, with an interim government in place. hello and welcome to business today. i'm steve lai. let's begin in the united states, where elite policymakers from the global circle of central banks are gathering injackson hole in wyoming. this comes as the latest economic indicators suggest that an interest rate cut is around the corner. the bbc�*s michelle fleury has more from new york. officials inside america cutting interest rates before voting in a smooth and sleek

indicating a september cut was more likely. moving in the right direction and the recent unemployment married means now is the right time to talk about. the us economy added an 80018,000 about. the us economy added an 800 18,000 jobs in 2023 and early 2024 but now know what that this report will cut in

september but how aggressive they will be. it is looking for clues from fed chairjerome powell. us federal reseve chairjerome powell will deliver his widely anticipated speech on friday. william lee, chief economist at the milken institute, gave us a sense of what to expect. well, the federal reserve chairman have used this opportunity to try to let the world get a peek at how they're assessing the world, the financial markets, and what it is that's leading up to the decision in september. and every chairman in the past has really tried to provide some clue as to what it is they'll be doing, not only at the next meeting, but for several meetings thereafter. and the message that you think you're going to hear is that the federal reserve is ready to lower interest rates. they're now convinced that they have enough evidence. inflation is clearly on its path downward to 2%. um, they think that the economy is slowing adequately so that there won't be any surprises on the inflation front. and they're going to reassure the markets and reassure the world that the rise in the unemployment rate in the united states is not a sign of recession, but in fact is a healthy development that normalises the labour markets. the feds two main concerns are inflation and employment. you touched on both of them just there. i wonder if you could give us more details about employment though, because it seems rather counterintuitive what you've just mentioned. well, you're absolutely right. markets are panicked when they heard that, my god, the unemployment rate has risen

from 3.5% to now almost 4.4—4.3%. uh, and that rise that's more than half a percentage point in the past has indicated that we are in a recession. but you have to remember why the unemployment rate went up. it's not because of lay—offs, which happens in every traditional recession, but rather more and more people are saying, gee, things look pretty good out there. i think i can find a job pretty easily so that more and more people are looking for a job. so participation rate in the labour force has really grown tremendously, and the labour force hasn't absorbed the huge inflow as quickly as it has in the past. and remember, normal unemployment rates in the united states is about 4 to 4.5%. we're right in the middle of that range of normal. when it comes to inflation, jerome powell has copped some flakfor acting too slowly to act. do you think he's played this one well though? i think he has, because the hardest thing in the world is to reverse yourself, to move prematurely and to have inflation not only remain strong, but to surge even stronger. and so they've really taken the risk assessments into account and said, look, it's better that we act slowly on inflation and make sure that it's really stamped out and on its way down to our target of 2%, because we know that if the economy is really falling off the cliff,

we can lower interest rates pretty quickly because we have quite a lot of range to lower rates. william lee, chief economist at the milken institute. now to an exclusive conversation. bangladesh's new central bank chief ahsan h mansur has told the bbc that taming runaway inflation and seeking more funding from the imf were his top priorities as the country gets a new interim government in place. he was speaking to nikhil inamdar in dhaka who began by asking him when interest rates could start going up. i'm going to increase the policy rate further. 8.5% is not acceptable, at least to me. it will, it should be increased immediately. very soon, maybe in i or 2

days to 9 and then 9.5 then to 10. and i will see where inflation goes. you know, you're currently on a $4.7 billion bailout package from the international monetary fund. you've served the imf for 30 years. are you asking them for more money? yes. this is one of the issue that we have already initiated. i have a verbal request we have made. we are going to do every reform that is possible to be done. we are in a difficult spot and we want to remain fully compliant in terms of servicing our foreign obligations. every penny of it. bangladesh never defaulted. bangladesh will never default. but we need some additional cushion for now. i have requested to them is that, look, increase it by two $3 billion. but we are not only asking imf. we are also going to ask world bank. we are going to ask asian development bank. jica and european union and other bilaterals. so, you know, let's talk about the banks because they are plagued by growing non—performing loans, you know, low liquidity. powerful businessmen who had

links to the previous government are some of the wilful defaulters at this point in time. there's been a flight of deposits as well. what are some of the big banking reforms that you have in mind that you will bring about in the next few months? it's not the benign neglect, it is a designed robbery of the financial system. it's like a...it�*s like they have discovered the honeypot and, and engaged some, some people to engineer, to take the honey out of the box. one effort would be, of course, to try to take people to task and get the money back. while doing this in parallel, we will have to reconstruct the banking system. so we are trying to establish a banking commission and work out programme which will involve change of board, change of management, change of injection of capital, new owners being brought in and in some cases small banks merge them together

for islamic bank. initially it will be virtual nationalisation of the banks. yes. and you can read more about the interview on our website, bbc.com/news. china is investigating european dairy products to find if they are being unfairly subsidised. the probe which was launched on wednesday will focus on cheese, milk and cream. the move comes a day after the european union lowered planned taxes on china made electric vehicles, but fell short of removing them. china has opposed the tariffs that will be voted on by the bloc later this year. turning to china, smartphone specialist xiaomi has given its first indication of the earnings of its auto business. the company delivered its first electric car in april and said the unit contributed around 870 million dollars to its second quarter revenue. but it will face challenges when selling its products globally.

that's according to jason low, principal analyst at canalys. i think xiaomi has demonstrated very strong performance in its 02. let's start by looking at the smartphone business. if you look at analyst data, xiaomi is ranked number three in the global smartphone market with 42.3 million units shipped with 27%, which is one of the strongest among the key

players in the market. and it is one of the few that also attain market share growth in such a highly competitive market right now. he was able to attain this reap the benefit of market recovery, as well as extending success across developing markets in double digit growth in latin america, middle east and africa, and as well as asian markets.

and if our business is doing really well, and of course, not forgetting its headline, which is its ev business. it shipped 27,000 units and its expected to ship

100,000 this year with 120,000 this year.