triggering a disciplinary action against rome for breaking fiscal rules will go to our correspondents are more on the end brussels for their latest. that's coming up next on the w business you're watching you get the news from berlin not only a lot more rock on behalf of all of us here thank you so much for spending this part of your day is also going to mark. the sun is certainly going to sky for germany's. i love berlin. 50 nations 50 stores and 15 very personal to all berlin is very best features. book no comment from our bureau max series every week on g.w.

. takes personally. with. some special. federal troops. there's trouble brewing wholesale coffee prices have been heading downhill and as farmers in countries like kenya fear for their livelihood we ask an expert what it would take for things to improve also coming up. a fight with italy over its ballooning debt correspondents and. bring light to villages in. africa.

you might not have noticed it at the davie stop at your barista but wholesale coffee prices have been plummeting spelling trouble for many small scale produces an international conference here in berlin is discussing ways to address the problem i'll talk to one of the participants here in a moment 1st this report. it's a scene for coffee lovers to savor but with the demand for a fine tasting coffee growing so to have called for sustainability the market is booming in germany and the higher prices paid for it to improve producers living costs most of the world's coffee is still growing by smallholder farmers there are 4000000 of them in ethiopia alone africa's largest coffee producer it is the country's number one export. but for the last 2 years world coffee prices have been heading downhill even slipping below the critical level of $1.00

a pound last time. the kind of price slump hits smallholder farmers washed of all the increased legal coffee initiatives aim to alleviate the hardship by paying better prices and investing in sustainable development. for more of the story and martin joins me in the studio here is the founder and c.e.o. of coffee circle it berlin based coffee roaster martin good to have you with us tell us briefly how this slump in wholesale prices came about i mean there is growing demand in india and china all over the world. true but unfortunately there's also more production than actually the mountain business going back into the eighty's when especially vietnam started to produce coffee and then brazil tried to kind of contract and they will produce more and more volume in order to get more more will get more efficiencies than to make it a bit cheaper so this year we anticipate about $2300000.00 backs which is about 137000 tons too much coffee produced so the amount is just unfortunately not

contemplating ok and when you visit producers which you do regularly what do they tell you about these lower prices affect the problem is the perspective they seeing it in coffee so 1st of all they can recover their cost of production right now so it's actually affecting already farmers farming now but also the future of the people so if you don't see a future in coffee then you're basically going to the cities and then you go to different routes and it ends up in lot of troubles in africa which is migration definitely which is in other parts of the of the whistle trafficking human trafficking in the end because people look for that target if so there is a massive effect coming if our system. right what would be a way out of this trouble unfortunately a coffee tree sauce would produce coffee after 2 or 3 years so there is no immediate action rather than basically just accepting it and trying to produce different crops for example have to diversify as

a producer about that's easy set of course for those produces who do not have an alternative if it's just a very sad truth now speaking of accepting it or not accepting it for that matter you say that your company's goal is to deliver good premium coffee to customers on the one hand but also lead coffee producers earn more how do you do that in a time when these people are actually losing money with the product they're coming well ultimately i can decide what i pay for the coffee and we need to differentiate between a c. market price we're talking about which is very low we're talking about commercial coffee traded in new york like on the in this in. ok or specialty coffee which is basically much better coffee which in terms of processing in terms of the rights you grown can actually achieve a higher price that needs investment from the hamas and we work with corporatists especially if you open but also in kong when also in kenya and other parts of the world and we pay much higher prices which go up to $35044.00 a pound so that could significantly change the way i work with coffee but it's not

an easy task but inevitably founder and c.e.o. of coffee circle berlin based coffee roaster thank you so much for your insight thank you very much the european commission has taken the 1st step in triggering disciplinary action against italy for breaking e.u. fiscal rules the dispute centers on the country's ballooning debt currently valued at 132 percent of total economic output that's more than double of what's allowed by you budget regulations if you member states back the plan to punish italy the country could face hefty fines for more on the story let's bring in journalist josephine mckenna rome and correspondent max than are in brussels max let me start with you how likely is it that at all italy will have to pay these fights well chris you just said it the member states that will have to decide on whether they back the report then they could start a long disciplinary process that it's intended to bring the spending back down but

this procedure has been used many many times in the last decade and so far no country has ever had to pay the fine so if the italians step up their game they might be able to avoid the fine now we have to keep in mind that italy and the e.u. commission have been at loggerheads for months josefina room how is this news gone down in rome where the governing coalition seems shaky as it is. well that's right this was a very scathing assessment of the italian economy and both the leaders of the league matel sylvania and the movement luigi jamal have reacted good already. saying we're serious people this is a serious country one we want to cooperate but you're not going to touch our pensions. salvini the head of the league campaigning for local elections think tax cuts of the end and that's not going to be very tough going to go down very

well in brussels so both of them sticking to the 2 very strong features of their own policies and while they're saying they want to be cooperative i think we're in for some conflict up ahead and fill us in on the question of how this ballooning deficit actually came to pass and what does the government want to spend the money on. well we're due to my deputy prime minister and head of the 5 star movement blames the previous center left democratic party government for this deficit affecting 2018 but there's no doubt that this coalition government has increased dish it's reformed the pension system to make it more generous it's introduced a guaranteed income for the poor and the unemployed which is a another costly maneuver that they've introduced. and now the tail sylvania the head of the league wants to introduce tax cuts and greater autonomy for the regions which would also possibly add to the ballooning deficit so this is

a big spending government they don't seem to be willing to look at reform and mr salvini today said that austerity was to blame for many of the country's problems that's not a very good outlook as far as brussels is concerned and i think we're going to say some some difficulties up ahead particularly because because as you said this coalition government is very unstable and the prime minister just at the contests early this week said he was not willing to stay unless like result their differences max back to you in brussels if you look at this disciplinary process ahead what does the european commissioner for economic affairs pierre moscovici mean when he says the door for italy remains open while he basically says that the just the he says the decision isn't final but what he says also if this procedure serves as a warning he also said that he would be willing to consider new data and reassess

further down the road so now it all depends on whether or not they're able to convince brussels that they are serious about complying with the new rules and regulations. and josephine let me get back to you in rome the prime minister of italy giuseppe conti said he wants changes to the e.u. rules tell us more of that. well just that the content has indicated he wants changes but he is far more conciliatory then the 2 deputy prime ministers he wants to see some flexibility from brussels it's a little bit vague at this point but his main problem right now is getting these 2 coalition partners to talk to each other this is barely any communication going on and there is speculation in the newspapers every day that we're going to see early elections perhaps as early as september if this coalition fails to stick together and decepticon to himself the prime minister has said he will not be sticking around unless they get talking to each other and get this country moving so

a lot of political problems before we get to brussels get joseph in mccann on rome max that are in brussels thanks to you both well the italian budget worries have been weighing on stocks today and they will be among the issues dominating discussions when european central bank governors meet on thursday to talk about measures to boost the economy in the euro zone more details are expected on the 3rd round of new banks loans pressure fact is building after inflation fell last month to 1.2 percent which is far short of the e.c.b. inflation target of just below 2 percent. is to malawi now where according to the government just 11 percent of the population has access to electricity that figure drops to just 4 percent in rural areas now a handful of women called the solar mama has set out to change that and gain some

entrepreneurialism spirit on the side. in one remote malawi village a group of mothers are using their skills to improve the lives of their families as well as their neighbors the women are nicknamed solar mamas they were trained to install operate and maintain residential solar power systems. power training in india anyone in my village who gets the home lighting system has to pay nearly $1.40 per month for the insulation maintenance. users applaud the mommas didn't improve my own life a lot for example my children can read at night also before i had solar i could be bitten by a snake if i went out at night time that life has improved because i use solar to light my house. light burners and budding entrepreneur these malawian women signal change for sub-saharan africa the solar energy not only provides the solar

mommas with a steady stream of income it's also sets to transform africa's economic landscape lower manufacturing costs and an increase in production means that solar panels now become more prevalent on the continent they are also more accessible to those in underdeveloped regions. and for me and the business for more simply follow us on facebook or twitter before we go here's a quick look at how global markets are trading up this hour on live thank you for watching.

entered the conflict zone come fronting the powerful. my guest this week a number of you speak conservative m.p. mark forrest walk from a hardline european from such groups has been snapping and listening around mrs may's he'll speak with the conservative party's ratings currently plummeting through the small coastal policy even desire to survive conflict so freakin 60 minutes on g.w.

a. touch of it. sure link to screw africa and the moral or link to exceptional stories and discussions from oh news and easy town i would say debited comes next week join us on facebook at g.w. forgot. this as news africa coming up in the next 15 minutes after more than 20 years suffice a nation zimbabwe is trying to boost its enemy economy by reconnecting with the international community with alarm grab case poking its head on the country convince the world about it's ready for business. so what do you want to do.