the subcontinent economically has made them billionaires. they're reveling in their misfortune. to do music which moves. the rajah's of the media started you remain t w. it is the most important place in the world to sound cars but the chinese are buying less of them car sales in china drop for the first time in a generation a trend that could have dire consequences for western manufacturers also coming up with germany under pressure to reduce its dependency on russian oil a german company figures out a way to expand the market for liquid natural gas from the united states. i'm chris of cobram berlin welcome to the program car sales in china are down four

percent for twenty eight hundred that's according to ernst and young it's the first time in twenty years for figures to fall over the year before and weakening of the world's largest car market could prove problematic for german carmakers who are banking on the chinese to sell their products to buy their products rather fox wagon sells forty percent of its vehicles in china twenty eight percent and b.m.w. twenty six percent industry leaders are wondering whether the dip in car sales is a temporary weakening of the market or the beginning of a long term slope. for more on this let's go over to chris and stalin he's a professor of strategic management and an automotive expert and what with business school christine welcome so which is it a dip in sales or is there more to it. there might be more to it it's a good indicate if it could only slowdown in general in china and we've seen that not just in the car industry but also in retail call me seems to be slowing down so

i'm afraid it might be more than just a short dip. and so if this is an indicator of. worse times to come or even the beginning of a market saturation do you think car makers are prepared to deal with it. i'm not quite sure they are we have seen first indication is that they're starting to drop prices we see some luxury cars actually being cheaper than the used version of them dead is an indication that it might start a price war a race to the bottom and that's certainly not a good sign for the industry not china as we have said is an enormously important market for carmakers german producers for that matter as well how do you see the growing chinese competition in that field. interesting parties the sweet showed it received ve me it calls the chinese government's he said it's an opportunity to create

a global champion so we could expect that state trying to push that they have done so also in the more conventional cars by forcing partnerships but that didn't quite work yes so we might see even a more aggressive stance as we switch into the vehicles chris and thanks for now but do stay with us because we have another news item. nissan motor is set to report its first quarterly earnings since xterm cars don't was arrested in november over legibly falsify financial reports the sun's operating profit is forecast to fall ten percent to four point seven billion dollars for the first year the company's weakest result in five years according to analysts surveyed by bloomberg renault will probably report and eight point eight percent decline in operating profit. so christine back to you how much has this scandal around corners going impacted needs. what i don't know is

a distraction at the moment but i think the bigger problem for nissan is the broader economic condition china massive market for them so that's not going well they're producing lots of diesel cars being on the a lot of pressure they also have to make all those investments in switching to evade clothes and mobility and so i think is a general market condition that really hit them. on top of the change in leadership i christen what's your take on the future of the nissan mitsubishi red no alliance nissan has had issues with being the biggest player there but having too little influence yeah you're saying it yeah that's. certainly something that miss any not happy with and we can expect that they'll try to get more for saying that alliance and i mean in fact you know we have lots of speculation that or of the main reasons why we had the whole scandal east because he said he's trying to get mine through and so for sure we expect to see some movement there to some style

a professor for strategic management and automotive expert at warwick business school thank you for speaking to double my pleasure. the country's economy has shrunk by more than half since president nicolas maduro to power in twenties thirteen sanctions have crippled its or oil industry and its ability to. keep itself float. has been turning to gold calling on freelance prospectors to extract the precious commodity. if every operation armed with only picks and shovels these miners in southern france while are risking their lives taking for gold there among an estimation three hundred thousand fortune hunters in the country making a go of pulling gold from makeshift mines many of them feel they have no other choice. like there's a lot of malaria here it's dangerous down in the mines there are collapses

things fall on you when somebody themself actually fell you could get buried god forbid there are risks but you have to keep working how else can you support your family. that. their work is helping to prop up the government of embattled president nicolas maduro paid in the country's near worthless banknotes the amateur miners supply the government with desperately needed hard currency. you can sell to the venezuelan central bank and to the venezuelan state development bank these are the two places you can deliver the metal they pay a good price there is a private sector but it pays a lower rate than the state. then it's way less sells most of its gold to turkey president ret of tired to one is one of materials

closest allies the proceeds are reportedly also used to buy desperately needed food from turkey. opposition politicians accuse i'm khurana for pushing an illegitimate for a she. not the one nobody knows how much gold is being produced or how much of it is sold to turkey and nobody knows how old where it's certified this is an illegal activity and i would have no hesitation in classifying it as blood gold. but with venezuela on the brink of an economic meltdown and the practice is likely to persist as long as there's a market for us amateur miners will continue to risk their lives in the hope of his gold. and staying with commodities shipments of u.s. crude into europe have just hit a new record january imports were

a six hundred thirty thousand barrels per day is still behind russia and iraq but above other opec producers higher u.s. oil exports to four hundred thirty thousand barrels per day represented six percent of all imports. more in the story let's bring in our financial correspondent only bartz and frankfurt li how important is this increase in u.s. all shipments to europe for european companies. it is important it's very important it's one of the main factors why the oil price here has come down also another factor is of course the perception that the world economy is slowing and other psychological factors like the geo political crises also contributing to oil coming down that melds into a picture and there's practically no other raw materials market that is so moving so quickly as the oil price and which makes itself felt in the business world but

also with the consumer as quickly as in this market and that's important because if you see now the world economies slowing are there all sorts of warnings we've talked about this already this week from the i and i for example it's important oil comes down and it's a lot lower than it was in october when it was starting to worry people now the oil prices around fifty two dollars for american like crude and in just a few short months ago it was about twenty dollars higher so that's a big relief believe arts reporting from frankfurt thank you. german economics minister but all of my are is in talks today with u.s. officials about importing more liquid natural gas which could help berlin reduce its dependency on russian oil now the german company linda is helping to expand the l. and g. market. this crowd is here to see the christening of a ferry special ship. the kyra's is the world's largest bunker supply vessel for

liquid natural gas or l. and g. with a capacity of seventy five hundred cubic metres it's a floating gas station of sorts enabling other ships to fill up with l.n.g. anywhere even out at sea. it's a flexible approach to what some call the fuel of the future we have glider ship for if we have ships with small tanks that can certainly be supplied with alan g. buy a truck for the big ships the big ferries cruise liners all container ships we can send one hundred trucks to fill up that tank that's why we need to supply vessel like this one he says. in fact refueling from a ship is much easier than from a tank truck which can be an elaborate procedure as seen here in cook's half and in germany. ellen g. mainly consists of methane that's been liquefied by cooling down to minus one hundred sixty degrees celsius critics of the fuel complain about the energy costs of cooling the gas but once tougher emission rules go into effect in twenty twenty

ship operators will be obliged to use lower sulfur fuel than they do today which could make l.n.g. more competitive. in hamburg based shipping company happy lloyd is leading the way it's retrofitting a three hundred seventy neither long container ship to run on ellen g. the company plans to have it fueled in rotterdam and singapore but it is aware that a container ship is in a different league from the many ferries that are already powered by l. and g. . i had a fat farm on a ferry sails from a to b. and in l.a. and maybe even be there ellen g. filling stations so you can always be sure that you can fuel your ferry but our ships at sea for many many weeks and we dock at many different ports all around the world so if something doesn't go according to plan and you have to refuel earlier than you thought then you might have a problem because the next port where. you can get might be thousands of kilometers away. and that's where

a bunker supply vessel like the kairos comes in in twenty nineteen it will remain in the baltic sea but in future it may be deployed to ports world wide. and that's your business. as always the west side the. business or better you have . twitter. thanks for watching and.

take a closer look at modern culture from. an extravagant. their stock. and definition. the party in chat with decisions from around the world.

groups every week w. . hello and welcome to a new week of arts and culture robin merrill is a quick look at what's coming up today. on the fortieth anniversary of the a rainy and revolution we're joined by filmmaker marion's already born in iran's most infamous political prison a documentary born in. international film festival. she was a love addict and a serial cheater and wasn't afraid to write about it as part of our series on classic german books we look at the poetry as alaska and one thousand nine hundred twelve confessional my hols. thoughts we begin with a bollywood film with

a difference golly boy had its world premiere international film festival over the weekend yes so a love story like old bollywood movies but that's where the similarity ends it's about a poverty stricken indian family whose son writes angry hip hop lyrics and smokes marijuana and he got standing ovations at the premiere. which got me boys about rap and freedom from society's expectations for everyone of that. group.