french president emmanuel micron has begun an official three day visit to china where he's set to sign a series of business deals with chinese leaders micron's visit began in hsien the starting point of the ancient silk road in a not to beijing's efforts to revive the trading route. this is predicted to be a great one for i.p.o.'s in almost three hundred billion dollars bonanza for public listings of companies which means you can start investing in them who shares could you get your hands on and twenty eighteen will let you know also coming out watch out tesla startup bites and is revealing its vision for the future of electric mobility in las vegas but can that go with fellow chinese firms fail and going dry towns worst drought in decades coping with the harsh conditions is one thing but it's also leading to job cuts we'll tell you why. i'm done here winter

and this is a business update tech firms are lining up to go public you could soon be buying a slice of the likes of spotify and dropbox analysts say the market for initial public offerings is that cold could total two hundred ninety billion dollars and twenty eighty but the biggest i.p.o. expected isn't a newfangled startup. if saudi arabian oil mommas goes ahead with its sponsors sell five percent of its shares on global financial markets it will be the largest i.p.o. in history with up to one hundred billion dollars that could happen in the second half of the year. what music streaming platform spotify is doing is somewhat less than and. it's a direct listing avoiding raising capital and diluting already existing shad's spotify has already raised more than a billion dollars from private financing in fact many companies are flush with

private financing and don't need stock market cash right sharing company lyft just got a billion dollar injection from google parent out for that but it's expected to go public at the end of the year its rival may wait until two thousand and nineteen. cloud storage heavyweight dropbox just secured at six hundred million dollars line of credit but expected to make its initial public offering in march or april home sharing giant air b.n. b. says it will be ready for an i.p.o. this year but it's likely to hold off. another notable i.p.o. may be extremely profitable self and make me wish just booked a billion dollars in profit for two thousand and seventeen not to be left out there's at least one big german i.p.o. on the horizon siemens medical technology unit health than is which hopes to raise at least five billion year is one of the biggest flotations in germany's history.

and of course these days companies aren't just turning to stock markets to raise capital they're printing their own money in a way initial corn offerings all i see owes a new cryptocurrency trend especially among startups by buying digital tokens you could help give a company the kickstart it needs go to our website dot com slash business and read all about the riches and the ruin that can come from investing in i see those. bitcoin is showing its volatility once again on monday taking a dive of around twelve and a half percent at one point briefly dropping below the fifteen thousand dollar mark elite document has revealed the chinese government wants to impose an orderly exit from bitcoin mining in the country the location of two thirds of the digital currencies mining power still plucky investors are used to such swings it rose over fifteen percent over the week to monday. and so if months he's on wall

street force so we should we really be looking at the daily movements up and down of bitcoin or is this news out of china really market changing this time. danielle if i mean if you wanted to make some short term profits you could have already made it and god knows terra bunch of congo will be left out there already but with con is exposed to many regulatory issues to wait for it to save life on a daily basis and i'm using the current base price is here now even if it is down now it's up for the week but it down for the month so looking at the chart doesn't really tell you anything about the reasons and changing constantly maybe to put things in perspective for a little bit more it took nearly seven years from it coming to reaching this all run from one to twenty seventeen and remember the finite supply of bit coin and this should eventually incur it's

a positive price cycle so maybe it is just not about returns only in messes then you know and if it's still early ok and looking elsewhere i can see electric car maker tesla's share price jumped five percent on monday after a rocky week what's up. thank you for our app nine hundred percent and i think quieter and tesla model three production is finally starting to rev up then you know the production rate past one thousand vehicles per week for the last few days of twenty seventeen and it just seems that tesla could really reach its goals of producing ten thousand pounds per week by the end of twenty eight driving up the share price so he thank you. and it's not just hester in the race to be king of the electric cars and some of the contenders on the consumer electronics show in las vegas despite the hot competition some still see a gap in the market just take bite and which wants to make it with fellow chinese

manufacturer as. it's opening night for the challenger and electric s.u.v. from china it's still just the prototype seeing light for the first time at the c.e.o.'s it's built by a new car maker called biden there were even former b.m.w. employees in management positions like c.e.o. costin bright fitted the technology which is available in two years it's very well known right now so it's more about getting good cost conditions and you know the range of this car will be you have to pay this is a small a better repackage will give you four hundred kilometers the big one five hundred twenty and five hundred twenty kilometers of range is more than enough. if you have access to a charging infrastructure and if you can bring the charging speakers. the electro s.u.v. will have a sticker price of around forty five thousand dollars to defining features will be

the touch screen in the cockpit and the speech assistance from amazon and twenty nineteen by wants to sell its first vehicle in china and then move on to the u.s. in europe in twenty twenty but getting there may not be that easy. these companies are finding that even though in theory designing electric car is relatively simple getting them to production in the mass market is actually a really really difficult thing so i think that this will definitely be a little bit of a struggle going to market i think twenty twenty may actually be optimistic to get all this technology at that price but again if they can do it it could definitely make a big impact on the market. but quite a few chinese carmakers have had bad luck producing electric cars some even presented vehicles here that never went into production but among biden's backers are two chinese investors with lots of capital the internet giant tencent as well as foxconn a manufacturer of apple products. france's president is drumming up business in a visit to china a man well mccrone speaking favorably about china's gigantic one trillion dollar

infrastructure initiative a revived silk road of glittering new shipping road and rail routes but with outsized investment comes the fia of outsized influence in many well maccollins first visit to china began in a city with symbolic meaning hsien was the starting point of the ancient silk road that connected china and europe beijing has been wanting to reconnect that trade route for years but the response has been lukewarm until now. mcconnell said it was time europe got behind the trillion dollar project supposed to get i think that the new silk road initiative can bring our interests into alignment those of france and europe if we give ourselves the means to work together. the plan will see gleaming new road and rail links through central asia drastically cutting shipping times but it's raised concerns of chinese expansionism markets flooded with ever cheaper

chinese imports and countries living in the shadow of beijing's military. a project to upgrade a key rail line in serbia at the other end of the silk road raised fears what was buying was influence the french president said the new trade route had to benefit both sides he says these roads cannot be one way there have to be comings and goings. it will end up with these roads can't be those of a new had germany that would transform the countries they cross into vassals. there's not much chance of these chinese soldiers will be marching into europe but emmanuel mccall will still have to allay fears the silk road won't become a conveyor belt for other types of chinese mass production. to cape town where water levels in local reservoirs are dangerously low the city is now on post strict limitations on water use but the whole region could still run dry. the city of cape

town has the ocean at its doorstep but fresh water isn't desperately short supply and the drought is threatening the survival of many area businesses an estimated fifty thousand jobs in the western cape region could be lost mainly agricultural workers but also gardeners and hotel cleaning staff could face and employment water rationing is affecting everyone even the five million tourists who arrive annually have been asked to keep showers to two minutes and under current restrictions water can no longer be used in gardens. in march twenty seventh the mayor declared the city a disaster area reminders are everywhere about the importance of saving water he was in which if you still want water to drink if you still want to make your cup of tea your cup of coffee i think we need to encourage our neighbors encourage off friends and family not to misuse water city officials keep a close eye on supply they look for leaks and other sources of waste households

have to limit consumption or face defined. cultural and commercial usage is restricted to the authorities are preparing for a day zero april twenty ninth the latest date when city taps are expected to run dry in that event there will be water point stations across the city which will distribute twenty five liters per person per day rain would help but in the heat of south africa summer that's not very likely. i'll be back with more tomorrow same time same place see that.

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