offs on all sorts of products from cork to computer parts stephen beardsley has more on that coming right up on the news business. every journey begins with the 1st step and every language with the 1st word emerged from the. coaches in germany to learn german why not come with them simple online on your mobile and free shop d w z e learning course nikos speak german made easy. cocoa to the girl max chat. post

a good line of story. with exclusive. must see concerning our culture you're a. place to be curious minds. do it yourself networkers. so subscribers don't miss out. pork avocados and semiconductors china is loosening tariffs on hundreds of products as it nears an initial trade pact with the u.s. we'll take a look at what it could mean for a domestic economy and much need of a boost. also in the show chinese pig farmers are on edge as disease and high prices butcher their businesses. and amazon is expecting a big holiday season but we'll look at what happens to the products that don't end up under the christmas tree. this is deja vu business asia i'm stephen beard's in

berlin thanks for joining us china has announced that beginning in january it will lower import tariffs on more than 850 types of products ranging from frozen pork to computer and phone components the move follows a thaw in china's trade dispute with us it also comes amid slowing growth in the country and a push to boost consumption compared to other years 29 has been sluggish for the chinese economy and beijing appears to be determined to change that starting january 2020 china plans to lower tariffs on more than $850.00 products including fish and frozen pork beijing's latest move is not linked to the ongoing trade truce with washington but more so the shortage of china's most popular me pork thousands of pigs have been culled as a result of an outbreak of african swine fever the tariff reduction will help with the pork shortage while also stimulating domestic consumption amid slowing growth in the 3rd quarter of this year china's economy only grew 6 percent on the year

that's its slowest pace in decades the country has maintained growth rates above 6.5 percent over the last 5 years but that is set to change this year and some analysts expect an even lower rate in 2020 that may have given reason for the chinese government to intervene the lower prices for imported goods will also be welcome news to chinese consumers. now as mentioned there the chinese government is going to great lengths to keep pork prices low amid the ravages of african swine fever but what does the disease mean for pork producers themselves times are tough even for those without infected stock or correspondent in china since this report. in the last few months and he juncture has been observing his hogs very carefully in august a case of african swine fever broke out in a nearby village. so you have in years they reported it to the authorities the

government came and killed all the pigs all of them the healthy ones as well they buried them deep in the ground that's how they were able to eradicate the disease. there are no tools for diagnosis available the only thing he can do is to observe whether the peaks look healthy african swine fever is a disease caused by a virus originating from africa but which is now spreading rapidly throughout china is harmless to humans but highly contagious and you need to know for hawks has 4 pigs worth a little over 2000 euros. descendants so fat it even has trouble getting up. and you will have it for chinese new year. new years or so the village butcher he buys hogs from other farmers who slaughter overnight he keeps them with his own store and infected pig here would likely kill his own peeps as well this one has just arrived. using it

that usually we don't worry a lot about our pigs but since the african swine fever broke out everyone is afraid of how much. the real extent of the epidemic is unclear some experts estimate that up to half of china's pork livestock is affected. early in the morning the time has come for the hog board for the previous night. the fan is white and the meat looks tender that's good quality. home. and he says that he's now cost twice as much as they did last year in order to ease the soaring prices the government has released part of its strategic frozen meat reserves the frozen meat says a lot cheaper. but me says he's not worried that his customers might dump him you don't know people here don't like frozen meat once it's frozen they won't touch us . pork is china staple meat increased pork prices are the main reason behind the

rising inflation. the meat is still warm in the 1st neighbors show up 1st come 1st serve and while his customers state faithful to him his business has been affected . every i think our prices used to be very stable in our village but now that it's more expensive i buy less meat. china's government recently announced that pork production has begun to rebound whether this is true or not is impossible to a very far in the meantime you can do little but to hope that the virus does not come back to the region. let's go now to taipei where i'm joined by did correspondent so dong han we just saw that piece on a pig farmer there struggling to make ends meet there with the threat of african swine fever how critical is it for china as a whole to bring in alternative pork sources here to import pork.

well. it is very serious question right now because china's industry has been hammered by african swine fever according to official data so i think ever has nearly half of china are and we know like china's pork imports has also search more than 150 percent in november from last year and we know the situation is especially worse because the price still going higher these hoes thaler stock up on supplies 2 chinese new year holidays approach and so given this situation reduction in the tariff is not surprising at all. have a big talk to your approach is pretty considerable. in the 1st import tariff there these other tariffs as we look at them just one of them are they basically implementing new policy from china or assisting a broader message about trade in general what do you see. well i

think both because china same as said that quote they're just the measures conductive to reduce the import costs promoting the orderly and free flow of international and domestic trade and of quote so on one hand beijing wanted changes to optimize the trace. on the other hand it's also a gesture to a more open economy before the trade war with the us officially ends all right joining us from taipei thank you very much. the german institute for economic research is calling for the berlin government to respond to new u.s. sanctions on the nord stream to pipeline with so-called climate tariffs against washington u.s. president donald trump signed the bipartisan sanctions bill on friday the u.s. wants to block completion of the pipeline which will allow russia to deliver gas to germany directly via the baltic sea washington says ukraine will lose billions in

transit fees if nord stream to which bypasses the country is built. a saying in germany buyer shares climbed to a 14 month high today rally comes after the us government filed court papers backing the company in its appeal against the us court judgement that linked the firm's weed killer round up to cancer the environmental protection agency says the product which contains life is safe doesn't cause cancer as has been alleged that supports buyers argument that only regulators have the authority to print cancer warning labels some experts see the reversal of the decision as a signal that other claims against fire may also now face legal hurdles. and earlier i asked our correspondent in frankfurt only bards what the u.s. government support means for buyer. it is important moral support for bayer especially in the light of the discussion in the public domain but the government

or the agency cannot be seen as impartial and so the courts are not obliged to follow their support to follow this intervention the same thing is being celebrated though in the financial markets the share is soaring but having said that it's nowhere near where it was before concerns over the effects of the weed killer for the buyer company emerged talks on the settlement are ongoing they're going at high speed expert lawyers are at this and people i've talked to here who have done similar settlements but not in the fire case but in other cases say there's a good chance that a settlement could be reached costing by billions but not an existential threat in the end a successful. there in frankfurt the holiday spirit might be short lived for luke tons of german airlines cabin crew union has threaten the company with a new round of strikes after christmas and it implied that subsidiaries german

wings and euro wings could be affected as well the nouns may came after failed talks over the weekend as the union is currently seeking better pay and benefits for 21000 staff members in november of 2 tons was forced to cancel 1500 flights because of a 2 day strike that brought air traffic across germany to a standstill. now earlier this year amazon sold $175000000.00 products during its annual 2 day sale known as prime day that gives you an idea of how much turnover the online retailer is capable of and it provides some context for this next story it shows what amazon does with products that don't sell. and amazon fulfillment center in vinson in the german state of lower saxony. environmental activists with the ngo greenpeace shared images and documents with a german. broadcaster showing new products being destroyed truckloads of unsold items are being transported to an incinerator several times

a week this is and it's a slap in the face for climate protection and each of these products contains valuable resources which are simply destroyed it is cheaper for amazon to empty its shelves like that than to recycle something. i was on doesn't dispute that new products are being dumped there mostly 3rd party goods that cannot be sold says the e-commerce giant in a statement for us this is the last and least attractive option environmentally and economically. the german government has recognised the problem the department of the environment as well as the economy are planning to take action is the and noisy was that the practice of destroying on seoul's products is used on a much bigger scale than we had before. but there's not a lot of reliable data. and that's why we're proposing a new law to ensure more transparency and to get a better overview of what's effectively being destroyed and how much.

the government reportedly plans to make it mandatory for companies to have a duty of care for their products so the goods are no longer destroyed for economic reasons. and that's it for me and the d.w. business team here in berlin there's a lot more business news and stories on our website w dot com slash business and please do check us out on facebook and twitter i'm stephen bears in berlin as always thanks for watching.

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