for major economies like india and china. also on the show france and germany team up to subsidize battery cell production they call it a strategic investment in the face of tough asian competition others call it a waste of money. and you're watching the business of asia i'm stephen beard in berlin thanks watching the annual meeting of the asian development bank is underway on the island of fiji the finance ministers and central bankers from a lender sixty eight member countries are in attendance so far two issues have dominated the agenda first a debate about whether china is now too rich to need funds from the bank second even longer term question how to stave off the most devastating effects of climate change it's a look. whether it's forest fires extreme drives. or hurricanes wreaking havoc the devastating consequences of climate change are already plain to see in the coming decades the effects are expected to intensify.

the pacific islands like fiji the host of this year's asian development bank missing are especially at risk that prompted the lender to take action ac billion dollars the figure its pledge to invest in infrastructure that will protect asian economies from the impact of climate change this is a good moment to see the challenges and opportunities of the past. how come it changes these countries but how international. support these countries speaking of the poorest that's become a rather prickly issue of lace specifically the question of whether it's time for china to graduate from receiving aid. japan has reportedly been calling on the bank not to grant new loans to the world's second largest economy critics say lending

beijing money which is in turn loans to emerging economies for projects like it's must have belt and road initiative represents a double standard so far though there's no sign of funds for china drying up. the a.d.b. has stressed that the priority will be on known threat how beijing to combat climate change and endeavor it says that will benefit economies across the asia pacific region. and i'm joined now by business is clifford coonan who has long experience covering china clifford the asian development bank isn't the only multinational lender that signal close look at chinese status is that's right the world bank is also examining it now and i think people are das questions about do we really need to be lending money to china when as we saw last week we have the belgian road forum in beijing of which china highlighted how it's lending money to other countries in the region and to build its influence and to to move into other parts of the world so i think people are wondering now what is going to happen with

with lending and china now the a.t.p. says that it will keep lending for climate change product projects in this case talk about china is that something that's just really needed in china or is this just sort of a face saving measure to keep lending to them but i think as we saw in the in the report just there you could see the era beijing i mean pollution it got a lot better for the environment is very much on everyone's mind so i think projects towards environmental issues are something that they feel they can still they can still lend the money for i think it's also part of this is also geopolitical because the japan backs the asia development boards and we've got to congress china always a bit of rivalry there particularly with china on the rise and japan trying to maintain its its situation and its powerful situation in asia too so there's several different things at play here in some ways this reminds me of several years ago when the world food program made its last delivery of food aid to china was a big moment and in some ways now you're starting to see the same thing again you

know maybe china is getting to the point where these these things are getting on out imagine though in that region where there is such high poverty levels are not asia pacific going outside of china just a little bit there must be some desperate need for climate change projects especially look at. fiji for example an island nation imagine a lot of island nations stand to be very strongly affected by climate change that's right i mean these are the you know the fact that it's taking place in fiji where water levels are rising people are worried we've seen in situation in the mall deaves and on the other am areas like this so i think the environment is very much on the people's minds in this area so now going forward to be wondering about you know what china's role can be in helping maybe to improve the environment in the region because we've seen that china has taken a leading role or has said it will take a leading role in helping improve the environment in the region so i think between all of those factors brought in together i think we're seeing a different change in how our funding is lent and given to china china's role as

a kind of emerges now is that as the big asian superpower over doonan our china expert here at the business thanks clifford oil prices have been rising this year with output curbs and global turmoil in countries like venezuela libya the us is tough stance on iran is also doing little to help supplies buyers of iranian oil have been exempted from u.s. sanctions through a waiver program have just lost their special status. time ran out for iran's eight biggest oil customers thursday as u.s. oil sale way verse expired and iran is feeling the pinch its currency the reaal has already lost two thirds of its value against the dollar since the year began the i.m.f. said the iranian economy would shrink six percent this year and that was before the latest u.s. moves iran says it's determined to continue selling its oil. just because nobody can push iran out of the markets even the us the biggest off the mall can do that

then nothing. new measures hit an already complicated global oil market american sanctions on venezuela and turmoil in libya threaten worldwide supplies analysts expect india for example to struggle to replace iranian crude that could mean higher fuel costs and inflation just as national elections approach and turkey's foreign minister said today that replacing the iranian supply will also be difficult for his country china is meanwhile iran's largest oil buyer its response to the end of waivers is likely to be folded into u.s. china trade talks buffeting the blow at least for now is greater crude output by the us washington says it can continue to meet global needs with the help of saudi arabia and the united arab emirates but traders are still worried. and let's bring in our financial correspondent. in frankfurt tosh this is been expected

for a while that these waivers are going to end what if oil prices been doing in recent days in anticipation of it. well the oil prices have been rangebound they've been trading between seventy to seventy five dollars per barrel that's seventy five was touched when the announcement was made that diverse will not be continued and ever since they've corrected a little analysts that i've spoken to or heard they don't expect the oil prices to go through the roof and to remain range bound however they do say that the prices would go a little higher from the current levels that's because the entire decision the decision in iran oil hasn't been factored into it because before this around the time of the sanctions the prices were at eighty five dollars per barrel and they crashed to around fifty dollars dollars per barrel immediately after the waivers kate did the u.s. says that it can fill this global capacity gap from iran with the help of its

allies of course its own supplies so is that realistic well experts certainly feel they can and that's the reason why the oil prices have been climbed the way they should have because it's one point one million barrels of oil per day that is going off the grid there are two or three reasons for this firstly that the u.s. has been pumping more and more oil and experts can expect it to continue pumping more oil in the coming days and also many of the export bottlenecks have been taken care off in the u.s. and are being taken care of secondly there has been a lot of spare production capacity around the world because most of these the oil producers are producing at lower capacity due to a deal with opec and other major oil countries. under their force in frankfurt thank you. france and germany are moving forward with their plan to build a joint battery cell factory for electric vehicles but two countries are asking the

european commission to approve state subsidies to jump start the project and the french and german economic ministers are meeting in paris today to discuss the alliance their aim is to make europe less dependent on battery cells from asian suppliers. electric cars is still something of a rarity on the streets the same goes for challenging stations two million electric cars was sold worldwide but that's about to change all the major comic has have announced plans to develop electric models and that means backtrace without which the vehicles simply count bunch. production by total storage capacity is dominated by asian companies the heavyweights include china owned invision a e.s.e. from japan it supplies nisson among others south korea's l.g. chem build specially audi and forward china's b y d n c a t l supply

homegrown produces and market leader panasonic from japan builds batteries for test as vehicles. now germany and france want to spend up to one point two billion euros in developing europe's battery production part of the funds to be legit leaving him out for consulting him including french com a capella show and sister company opel in germany the two have plans for a battery cell factory a total of thirty companies have registered interest in the subsidies but some are warning against using tax revenue to subsidise the sector the german center for automotive research says european batteries wouldn't be competitive due to the high cost of electricity needed to make them and because robots do most of the production work job creation would be no such critics say the subsidies would provide little benefit. in the hotel chain ojo has purchased european holiday whole rental company leisure for reported four hundred fifteen million dollars the

acquisition is part of the indian firms plan to become a global real estate brand beginning a strong foothold in the european market at leisure manages more than thirty thousand holiday homes across fifty countries some two point eight million travelers use it services every year. and that's it for me and the business team here in berlin you can find out more about these and other stories by going to our website dot com slash business or by following us on facebook and twitter i'm stephen bears in berlin it's watching.

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some time in the twenty sixth. great granddaughter. what made the world be like in your life time around half a century. ago when i was there were. you will share the planet. your world be around two degrees was. evidently sea level rise by at least one meter in this century. we're going to have some climate impacts majority greater than. all.

why aren't people more concerned. for the first. place. blame. this is the. president. has the army to fight off coupon after this week's violence military. meanwhile. calls a series of strikes. on the program. israel comes to a halt as it remembers the six million jews murdered in the.