the year is about to kick off in geneva. a rugged electric car designed and made for african markets it's suddenly become a hit in europe to. that story a bit later in the show because we start in europe where first big motor show of the year gets on the way tomorrow gallery in geneva switzerland today as an industry be set by problems legacy comical struggle to make progress on electric cars and self driving cars chased by newcomers like tesla or google while echoes of the diesel gates scandal still reverberate. from straight policies china slowdown and brags it to the makes so really what i call a party atmosphere our reporters encountered there in geneva. the geneva motor show is an opportunity for car makers to toot their horn industry mammoth's white folks wagon have been known to rise to the occasion last year v.w. c.e.o.

have at least used his appearance to herald in a new era of electric mobility but this time the political landscape in particular the continuing uncertainty over britain's departure from the e.u. is putting a damper on proceedings we were told that it would only be hit for several months and off towards we would find agreements and recover. but it's very hard to predict it so i would say. a brics it wouldn't suit the company but it would be it would hurt ourselves in the event of a no deal bret's it higher tariffs would weigh heavily on car makers with production in the united kingdom germany's b.m.w. would even have to contemplate moving production of the many abroad. we have at least have to consider enough because we cannot absorb ten percent costs on top of that this year no amount of glitz can disguise carmakers concerns over their

industry's future whether it's the prospect of a disorderly or of punishing tariffs now more than ever the stakes are high. now reported is in geneva for us to know what i'm hearing from european kamikazes briggs's really their biggest loria. fulbright's it is just one of many worries but to the carmaker is it of course feels like of most imminent one we're all we're just about three weeks away at this point we're not even sure it's not particularly surprising that b.m.w. has chosen at this point to say that they're considering pulling out production of the mini from the u.k. any contingency plans as a result of an ordeal private what take time to trigger investors have to be psychologically prepared affected staff have to be economic. be prepared and by the way that's four thousand five hundred jobs in the u.k. for a b.m.w. and of course that's not a lawyer and considering this toyota also said here at the geneva motor show that

it cannot guarantee you k. job so that's another three thousand for your account the fact is if production becomes too expensive or too complicated the u.k. carmakers will go elsewhere the question really is at which point they'll do what but that's not even something they could say at this point. of course not only about fancy and fast cars there in geneva let's look at one of the bigger issues in many mega cities all over africa that's come justin's a comic is addressing that issue. congested cities definitely a problem around the world and carmakers are looking into solutions what they'll be the first to tell you about the super bowl it probably doesn't light any kind of car rather they're looking at mobility concepts around autonomous right sharing flying taxis basically anything that doesn't require parking and can carry groups of people continuously now but technology does exist for this. infrastructure

to run the systems isn't in place yet so it could still be a few years yet looking forward to the flying taxis thank you very much to now them aloud in geneva for us. to. talk about flying taxis even the simplest appliances these days contain electronics from count openness to washing machines everything seems to have a beeping digital haase designed to make our lives easier it often does the opposite and that has spawned a friend into the opposite direction simplified robust technology that actually does what it's supposed to do without complicated menus or software updates very often these stripped down products are successful in developing a colonist like the car an electric car made in munich but aimed at the african markets. a car of munich technical university research project aimed at africa this electric vehicle can go two hundred kilometers between charges carries loads of up to a ton and doesn't need special tools to repair it but certainly demand from europe

has surged now a team of almost fifty including thirty students are trying to get it into mass production by twenty twenty. it's helped a thousand acres a year will be rolling off the production line by then destined for europe short term for africa be a car is part of a general trend towards the science of simplicity with no fragile high tech. in terms of complexity a conventional automobile consists of several thousand parts whereas ours only has around six hundred separate parts. that's a great deal less so there's a great deal less can go wrong with it. we have two motors simple technology to take a passenger compartment just needs hosing down. everything is made of metal there's no plastic. michel's plastic the first prototype for the european market is already running around the company grounds if it breaks down it only need to screwdriver

and spanner to repair it. that's the spirit so and sluggish those words are being used to describe south africa's economic performance in the first quarter of this year the country is set for another year of near stockland growth of just zero point eight percent this year running africa's second largest economy has opposed the growth below two percent south african presidents are attempting to implement a number of reforms that could turn the nation's economic tide but there is a satisfaction among party members and labor unions have made that difficult. well figures like that will likely have an influence on the country's credit rating meaning the likelihood of the country being able to pay back its debts these ratings are determined by rating agencies they give marks for economic performance to countries so investors can gauge whether an investment in the country's debt is secure or risky the big three in that business are standard and poor's moody's and

fitch is stablished system to rate the likelihood of a country defaulting. and sloan's using a combination of letters and operators like pluses and minuses these ratings are important they can determine the fate of a country in the global financial markets so from an golar to zambia most affluent african conference performed poorly with most of them rated speculative highly speculative or even extremely speculative the results countries those credit ratings have to pay higher interest on the debt they issued the only exception is botswana that's wide wide appears green on all map here now let's talk with more about this within the studio is done tell us from w.'s africa destiny of almost every african country is ranked poorly or we've just seen that on the map by the rating agencies are those grades justified well if you ask the african governments the most of them are of course no they're not there is even talk of an alpha

african bias that's even what some academics on the continent are saying as well but if you asked the rating agencies of course you get it at a different story they say well this is of course very clear on all three tapes of object to process so to speak where they use certain data to come up with these the ratings and there is no bias at all according to do they compare. the african countries to bigger condom is like america or germany is that that's how they fare as well they're looking of course at the economic data how the countries are fairing about issues such as growth they look at the political situation in the countries the independence of the central bank the strength of their you jittery all sorts of factors that matter to investors. what happens in the country's credit is downgraded it can enter a vicious circle and it yeah absolutely i mean the countries need the ratings if they want to borrow money on the international capital markets and if the rating is

poor of course they have to pay high interest and the other thing of course they could lose out on an on investments because of course investors look at the rating that a country has and then they decide whether. i want to put their money in that country or not so here also african countries can can really risk losing millions so basically it's when the credit rating is going down and not it's also the country is also losing money. in they have to pay more in their interest. now africa many countries in africa and the african union as far as i understand is looking at restricting the influence of crude rating agencies how will they do that well it's still pretty early days and there are no measures on the table yet but there's a discussion that is going on in africa one issue of course is transparency some economics say we need to tackle this at as an a level and simply set up some come up with some guidelines force the rating agencies to come up with a methodology they're using to find out how they're actually coming up with these

ratings there is a secret though isn't it well of course it's not particularly clear in africa there are no laws in place at the moment i think south africa does have one but the other countries that are being rated don't have any laws to require the rating agencies to actually come up with and open up with as far as their methodology is concerned the u.s. tried this what they they they've tried to be less dependent on credit rating ratings how did they fare well there was this big ambitious plan to come up with a european rating agency i mean that has just remained a plan but of course there has been some regulation there are some laws in place that actually regulate the work of the region intern's is about pharma africa's thank you very much for this insight. chinese tech company while way has opened a cyber security lab in brussels in a bid to show more transparency in europe and five u.s. allegations that it helps eavesdrop on digital communication the new law gives the

company a venue to reassure e.u. policymakers about its cyber security credentials deputy chairman ken who told the crowd at the opening that all regulators organizations and customs welcome to use the scent. of a charm offensive that way that's it for me on the business africa can find a lot more business news on background stories from around the world website that's of course. on facebook and twitter. news that's up next.

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