the birthday party on the rooftop when the fire broke out. at the. global stocks of had a fantastic year and that's been especially obvious on either side of the atlantic germany's benchmark dax rounded off twenty seventeen thirteen percent on the year and new york stocks came in with a whopping twenty five percent wrong it's also coming up duisburg streams our final stop on the new silk road can an eleven thousand kilometer rail link to china revive the economy of a faded german industrial town and how a husband and wife team from humbug taking on a spice industry giant and when. i'm done your winter welcome to your end of year business update and a muted final trading session of twenty seventeen on the frankfurt stock exchange went out with more of a whimper than

a bang germany's benchmark index the dax was sharply down from its record high this year ending at twelve thousand nine hundred and seventeen points however it was still thirteen percent up on the year investors ignoring the potential political risks here in germany where there's still no government after three months since the election in new york stocks soared from record to record and twenty seventeen but the dow ended the last session of the year over one hundred points down on the day. and our markets mandaeans quarter is on wall street so yes it's good to see you investors taking stock of twenty seventeen what do they think. well it was an unbelievable year here on wall street even if we traded a bit lower on the last trading session of the year but still for the months the dollar jones is up meaning we have nine consecutive months that we saw gains with blue chips where we haven't seen a win streak like this since one thousand nine hundred fifty nine we had this year

seventy one records in the dow jones industrial average the says never happened before in the one hundred thirty two year history of the index and in general the stock markets reacted very positively to the industrial friendly of course of donald trump and then also that we're seeing economic growth all over the planet also does or did help driving stocks higher and is the mood just as upbeat for twenty eighteen. there are quite a few analysts who believe that there is still room for improvement and a lot will probably depend on central banks especially here on the federal reserve there is some uneasiness that we might even see an overheating of the u.s. economy that could mean that the u.s. federal reserve my the need to be more aggressive as planned so that could be a damper for stocks and then on the other side we got the tax reform so that it

could drive profits of u.s. corporations higher and corporations could bring their money back from abroad and that actually could give a push for the u.s. dollar which last about fourteen percent over the year thank you very much jensen happy new year to you from all your colleagues here in berlin have been rear. it's finally confirmed stranded airline nicky has a buyer i agee has confirmed it wants to buy the austrian subsidiary of bank of carrier. i agee which also own. british airways has offered twenty million euros to snap up the company which will integrate into its own no frills venture seven hundred forty of the one thousand making employees will come along for the ride to the move follows tons of withdrawing its bid to make. a thousand years ago spices and treasures once traveled along the silk road from china to the middle east and europe china is busy reviving the idea investing hundreds of billions of

dollars in paul's roads and bridges between china and the west this week we've been looking at some of the stops along the route we finished at the end of one of the rail lines in the western german city of deuce book home to the largest inland port in europe it handles three point seven million containers a year making it an ideal hub for china's new silk road project the rail link from china is already up and running and a two weeks for the journey cargo arrives there from china four times faster and by sea. but europe's largest in one port most containers arrive by ship but not all. that might look and spectacular but this is one end of the new silk road a freight rail route stretching eleven thousand kilometers and connecting do is good with chongqing in central china. instead of silk and spices typical cargoes

today include how select tronics and textiles. but for the truth the balance of us would be what we're part of the largest connotation in central europe. the chinese want to sell masses of consumer goods. and the best place to sell them is where you have a lot of consumers. combine that with a dense network of roads and rail links at this end plus the rhine river connecting with rotterdam and now also the burger on europe's west coast it's ideal. coming this will. turn out twenty five trains a week to do is book from china carrying both goods and hope for the future. located in germany's industrial heartland duesberg used to be a wealthy city but it's been in economic decline for decades. the city's representative for chinese affairs still remembers the steel plants lighting up the nighttime sky when he was a boy today like the coal mines across the river valley to most have been closed

down the lid since once again in the last twenty years we've lost around thirty or thirty five thousand jobs in the steel industry. which is why he welcomes trade from china. and the new silk road will boost the influx of investors such as ya mean one who has big plans for do is book. begin here in china and we will be building a china trade center here. on this line behind us we will have one hundred twenty thousand square meters of office space over five stories. hundred scientists meter. the center is set to accommodate around two hundred companies which will have excellent access to the european market from here. the construction is being subsidized by the chinese government as part of a long term strategy. that also includes the new train link.

it may not be making any money for beijing yet but the financial commitment makes do is confident that when it comes to the new silk road and future trade the chinese really do mean business. one of the most important commodities on that ancient silk road was spice folks dominates the german market for spices with an eighty percent share but a family from hamburg is making fast inroads thanks in part to social media. little ida is helping out today the creators of put their heart and soul into their business and they're getting some good footage for their you tube channel. if you would like to wish you a merry christmas next week there won't be cookies but rather steaks again the limpers are eager to expand their business. we notice that our customers like to watch our videos and what could be better than making videos of us cooking

baking and grilling we can show our spices and all the things we make with them and . when i'm an awful lot. we provide insights into our production and don't have any secrets we're open and honest about how we do it and you can follow us on all the social media channels five the company has made an impact on the conservative german spice market due to t.v. appearances and elaborate marketing crowd has been able to rival market leader foods in just four years spice mixtures are especially popular like pepper a barbecue meat and hearty roast goose the company's sixty five employees are used to the unusual fragrances. and then you don't smell anymore you don't notice that even in the evening when you come home you need an hour or two to perceive any orders again and. again exclusively with online sales but it now plans to expand to supermarkets across germany to do that its product range has to be complete when

raw materials are expensive it has to look for alternatives. on going to min of a quality we could buy lower quality but we don't do that because quality is very important to us so we said that first we'll remove some recipes and certain spices from the market or to give us a lot of routes with. jeff on limca likes looking for alternatives since his childhood in tanzania he's been fascinated with exotic spices and once wanted to become a cook. even though he chose to work in the media industry he continued to experiment with spice mixtures amid rapid growth he could no longer do everything himself three. i really did make the first one hundred mixtures myself but now we depend on our employees who are very good at this but i still allow myself to taste every spice which definitely causes some irritation a third of myself to tackle on average one hundred grams of spice costs six to seven euro's certainly not

a bargain but the limit is want to distance themselves from mass produced products in plastic containers and. when we take all these steps and everything we do to make our brand what it is customers do notice it and perhaps then they'll choose to buy from us instead of buying from the monopolies doll few at a bus from the want to name one or. more the police. it looks like customers are doing just that during the christmas season the company has been working at full production. find work manufacturers are set to cash in this week as millions prepare for new year festivities global sales last year reached almost two billion dollars according to market research firm q why watch those sales being at the end of the year europe's biggest economy germany will fall count more than one hundred thirty million euros on new year's eve fireworks alone imported products accounted for three quarters of

a bang flash and whistle at midnight here on the phones. going out with a bang if you want to look back at the business yeah it's all available on our website and social media. business team. are happy and prosperous twenty.

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media center at media center dot d.w. dot com. glenn. we get starlight we get gamma ray bursts we get i think rays there are extremely weak compared to the sunshine. so in a practical sense the sun is the only choice for long term energy supply. well clearly more scientific discoveries and more engineering are required to enable the basic technologies to be cheap enough a lot of the electrical energy we produce is lost in the wire between the generator and the house so if we could make superconducting wires out that would be a wonderful way to transport energy from one place to another so let's make those investments now so that we own the things that we need to own when the time comes.