oh daddy. if that job just under 50 feet that's why my because i tied to do that in capital anything. and i want. 2 china opens its annual people's congress with a vision of economic transformation but behind the pageantry serious questions little can the country continue its robust growth while also raising incomes and its rigid leadership embrace disruptive change take a look. also on the show the e.u. is expected to charge apple with antitrust violations sharpening the discord between brussels and american tech giants. and will take you to a bookstore in taiwan with

a dim view of overlit displays. a welcome to the show i'm seeing busy in berlin it's good to have you with us growth of more than 6 percent that's beijing's target for 2021 which it announced friday during the 1st session of its annual parliament meeting the national people's congress and some analysts believe that target is actually too low given china's production capacity and its strong response to the pandemic china was the only major economy to see economic growth last year of the parliament is a rubber stamp of the decisions made by communist party leadership under head of state paying. and the people's congress is doing more than confirming current year targets is also stamping the country's economic course for the coming years and china strategy calls for continued heavy tech investment including investment of over $1.00 trillion dollars in 5 g. by 2025. by that same year 2025 the country wants its per capita income to be

double what it was in 2015 back then $8000.00 per person it's been rising ever since china wants to see it at $16000.00 per person by the middle of the decade now that increase is critical for plans to grow the country's domestic consumption which remains a weak spot currently and the chinese economy a growing consumption could also have consequences for firms across europe including german firms and in particular the do a lot of business with china including technology company x. tron volkswagen and infinity on you see how much of their turnover comes from china alone whopping amounts there now for more on this i'm joined by 3 so far and she's director for the center for russia europe asia studies and brussels 3 so it's great to have you on the show you know the national people's congress comes with a lot of pomp every year and especially this year there are certain narratives that they really want to reinforce including that rebound from the pandemic help us shed some light on the realities that they're facing the challenges that the chinese

economy is facing. the national people's congress is designed for the domestic audience as well as the international audience to show china is such a powerful country and as you noted it is the only country to have the economy grow but they do face domestic headwinds for example the easy wins by joining the w t o back in 2001 moving labor from the countryside to the cities all of these things have been used up already and they have a demographic issue an aging population so this next stage of growth which will be enunciated in this 5 year plan will they be able to compete on the international stage global stage because it will be far more difficult globalisation as has far more skeptics now and people's public perception of china has decreased dramatically so that if there's a great deal of skepticism about china's role and the belt and road initiative for example. in europe theresa there seems to be competing ideas about china and about how close europe should be to china on the one hand you see efforts to intensify

the investment relationship the trade relationship between the 2 on the other hand you see skepticism over human rights issues for example which of those strains is winning out can we say. the comprehensive agreement on investment which was agreed in principle at the end of december was a very important development in china trade relations the details that have not yet been revealed since an excess haven't been published but the european parliament which needs to ratify it has made it clear that they are very concerned about human rights issues and john as well what's happening in hong kong so this remains to be seen if this will actually get through and it also possibly precludes possible u.s. china u.s. you cooperation and joint leverage to improve china's trade practices the problem of k. the comprehensive agreement and investment is that it really depends on the world trade organization and we know that that has a lot of problems so this will be difficult to implement and the biggest concerns are really on state on enterprises and trent the lack of transparency on. chinese

government subsidies to these so it makes it very difficult for european companies to compete and for them where there is growing concern because there is no what happens to xi jinping if he should become ill or there doesn't seem to be any clear replacement for him so this long term trajectory of china's growth there's a deep skepticism about where it is going to go in the future although everyone is interested in investing there since the dizzy only academy growing right now but there is growing skepticism and what we're talking about xi jinping you mention of course so much is built around him he has a very centralized leadership style that doesn't really brook much disruption what does that mean for the economy especially when you look at tech for example. you mentioned in your opening remarks about extra well some a conductor's china spends more money on importing semiconductors and oil that's a huge figure and so they have they understood during the trade war with the united

states because the u.s. government. limited the amount of semiconductor and chips that could be exported to the p.r.c. they wanted to grow that domestically but they've had a lot of trouble doing that so they will depend more on europe for that and in addition they've put a lot of money into this but with a lot of un performing companies so that we've seen several of them close down recently and this is a huge national security national security interest for china by didn't ministrations us we following would trump has done and they will continue with the not selling some of conductors to china so this is an area of key development for china and with this kind of growing authoritarianism where you need independent innovative people in companies it might be far more difficult to do when authoritarian regimes tend to punish those who are a little outside the box as we saw recently with the punishment of ant and jack ma that was a very very big deal of course when they canned that i.p.o. teresa fallon with the center for russian european europe asia studies rather in

berlin thank you so much thank you. all right it's been a year of patience for oil producing nations the pandemic forcing them to make dramatic production cuts to flat demand and plummeting prices that hit their budgets hard when our oil prices are finally back to prepare so is it time for a ramp up to make up lost lost ground not so fast the opec countries led by saudi arabia wanted to keep the current production bottle make that put them at all odds with a block led by russia that was pushing hard to reopen the taps in the end they agreed to leave most of the existing production cuts in place until the end of april it would again question and begins we have mitigated then that of the lusty waves of the endemic avoiding complacency . only opec allies russia and kazakhstan were allowed to make small increases in

daily production russia's energy minister alexander novak was more optimistic about the global outlook than his saudi counterpart. the market has not yet fully recovered but we're now in a much better shape and state of the market than we were just a few months ago. but he stressed that it was difficult to know how the corona virus might spread and that the long term economic consequences were difficult to calculate the decision not to boost output so a crude oil prices rise rapidly. right from the oil industry to the tech industry the european commission is likely to bring antitrust charges against apple that's according to sources quoted by reuters and several other media outlets brussels is set to target apple's payment system its e-book service and in particular the company's treatment of using such music streaming service spotify on its app store the potential charges add to

a growing backlash against the fees apple as well as competitor google charge outside developers for using their app stores charges could come as early as this month. for more on this let's bring in our financial correspondent chelsea's lanie in frankfurt chelsea so what exactly does the e.u. believe apple is doing wrong here. well the e.u.'s been investigating whether apple is really abusing its power that it holds through its app store to the detriment of its competitors to the detriment of its customers so through the op store apple is able to take about 30 percent of their revenues of companies of developers that want to have an app in the app store that's the only way to get your app onto an apple device and there are you know a 1000000000 of those now so it's really crucial for a lot of developers to be in the apple app store but they say that the conditions that apple is setting is unfair the 30 percent revenue cut but also not allowing them to use outside payment services so we've seen some companies have to raise

their prices to make up for the money they're losing to apple some have to sign it not to allow payments at all through the op store and that all is what the e.u. is looking at it whether that's hurting businesses whether that's hurting customers . it definitely is opposite of revenue has become one of apple's biggest businesses it's worth about $64000000000.00 for the company last year so if they are forced to make changes as a part of it you investigate and i could be a big deal for the company some things that have been proposed are for example for saying apple to allow developers to use other use other payment systems they also could potentially hand down the billions of euros worth of. charges we've seen that in the process while. she was living in frankfurt think you. are as good as

some of the other global business stories making headlines. indian farmers protesting for months over the opening of the country's agricultural markets to private companies plan to block a major highway outside delhi this weekend the move will mark the 100th day of the protests so far talks between the government and farmers have failed. australia has called on the e.u. to lift an italian block on a planned shipment of the astra zeneca vaccine italy blocked a shipment of 250000 doses to the country in the wake of supply delays in europe vaccine distribution issues are becoming a growing source of global tension. a great book should be illuminating what about a great bookstore for one shop in taiwan the less light the better to look for. step into a bookstore its entrance built like a shrine turned a corner and it gets dark so dark you can't see where you going there are only

books. many say that i designed a dark store but in reality it is not dark we have almost 500 sets of light in here it is not completely dark i just made the space disappear so. this is. the focus is where it should be on the books with just enough light to delve into the story and treat the soul and the name of the business. soul reading. data entry to the media the overall reading experience in the bookstore is comfortable it's like reading a book with a dim light in the evening before sleeping reading in such a space quickly makes me want to read a book and when i read i feel very peaceful and can really learn what the book is about. and that's why customers end up buying the book.

making the business side of the store work too. all right that's it for me and the business team do check us out of line d.w. dot com slash. the fight against the corona virus pandemic. has the rate of infection been developing what does the latest research say. information and contacts the coronavirus update 19 specials. on t w. 2 go. as we take on the world. we're all about the stories that matter.

whatever it is meant. to be on fire made for muslims. the findings suggest that the laboratory incidents i put disease. is extremely unlikely and. to explain the introduction of the virus into the human population. this seems to be the consensus up to a controversial joint investigation into the origin of corona virus by the w.h.o. and chinese government in blue hunt so where did the virus come from the prevalent theory is that the sars co 2 virus is

a so noses that it jumped from animals to humans. either from close contact with these creatures or the hunting of exotic wildlife so case closed not quite questions remain. indeed welcome to a night in special i'm monica jones in berlin ny took a year for china to allow an international investigation into the origin of the corona barrus and then only in a joint mission with chinese experts is beijing trying to hide something that wouldn't be the 1st time that china's handling of exotic animals led to the birth of a deadly virus. wild animals in cages many of them injured and weak it's filthy and cramped and the animals are in close contact with humans. the corona virus may have started to spread in an animal market like this is the perfect breeding ground for new diseases. markets like this provide an opportunity for

pathogens to make the leap from one species to another. in the process the pathogen can develop characteristics that make it easier to spread to a 3rd species in this case to humans. experts have long been warning that the trade in wild animals could be a ticking time bomb more than 2 thirds of infectious diseases that affect humans originating wildlife those include deadly diseases such as the ebola virus sars and hiv scientists call such diseases zoonotic because they originate in animals. who are not of diseases can be dangerous because the pathogen can develop new capabilities in its new host the new host has no immunity so infection can often lead to serious disease. the kerner virus pandemic has thrust these wild animal markets into the spotlight around the world many are calling for a total down. the animals are sold not just for food for private households some

species assigned to make traditional medicines or aphrodesiac others and pricey delicacies on restaurant menus. animal protection activists like these in vietnam say that the only way to reduce the risk of content is to ban the commercial trade in wild animals that have viruses don't really make a distinction. you know. a lot of the higher trade chain they don't make that distinction which whether their trade is legal or illegal whether their training is for bush meat from of sold for medicine or as exotic pets activists agree the desire for an exotic pet is part of the problem there's a flourishing illegal online trade in them especially involving reptiles. but wild mammals are also sold online illegally they pose the highest risk for transmitting

viruses to humans china has now temporarily suspended the trade and consumption of wild animals but as long as the worldwide market exists the threats of new emerging viruses will continue. to professor fabienne linda you've just seen him in this report he supported the investigation into the origin of the corona virus and he joins us now good to have you with us approach a group leader of epidemiology of highly pathogenic micro-organisms of the robot coffee institute here in berlin what was your role in. well i was asked to join the team as an expert on when not to is eases so i have the technical expertise we are looking since many years for the source of human disease in wildlife normally mainly in the tropics in african context so is it a given now after this joint mission looking into the origin of the corona virus is

it a given now that the virus has actually been transmitted from animal to human and did all of that happen in china. well i think everybody would agree that given that the virus comes from an animal to mentally infected humans because we didn't know it from the human population before so that's that's clear the question is not which species exactly were involved. and how did the transmission happen there where is pressed for less than that in that context of that office the holes on the agenda and those questions you just raised do we know the answer now which species and how you know we have very little evidence at the moment which species are involved the only thing we know is that the closest relatives of the origin of one of this to if the virus is found in certain bat species in

cells east asia or so that's a suspicious range of species to look at in a suspicious region to look at an elf but the only other data are not reading leading to to a very good process at the moment i still have to ask that question though i mean because there is this theory that the virus came from a lap even though an animal in the lab presumably can this theory now be ruled out or are they still question marks. so the theory is extremely difficult to completely rule out. because technically that's a very big challenge haul ever the likelihood that this has happened is extremely low if you consider how intensive we have contacts between wildlife and humans into media tools farm wildlife and humans this simply seems to be the least likely scenario so i think they should investigate this in their research on the most likely ones and then later we may still come back to the other hypothesis all right

then let's stick to the transmission from animal to human and i mean even here in germany of course we do have virus spillover from from rodents to human for example every year so when does the transmission from the virus from animal to human become a real problem like the one we're now seeing with this pandemic. so as you said that frequent transmissions and it's not only by recess and if you think about. colon functions like in the food industry that's frequently a problem right so and that's a severe problem we have so the question sometimes drones into an epidemic or pandemic virus really depends on the property of the virus in the 1st place so is it something easily transmissible from human to human so for example hunter viruses that you find also in germany transmitted from rooms to humans are not well transmitted between humans so they are simply lucky that the rest doesn't

have the property like this elsewhere which has you know so that's one of the important factors all the most important factors i would say lastly i mean why does it actually matter to know the origin of the virus i mean what it actually help us fight the current pandemic. it does not help to fight the current pandemic but it helps to reduce the risk of future pandemics to happen and these kinds of pandemics have happened since many many years old a time think about the same thing about even measles come from an animal origin or so we will continue seeing these kinds of things so you can only solve a problem if you have understood for only 40 and then you can take the right contemn measures to reduce the risk of events so this is what we need and we need that from all the breaks happening not only the very prestigious one as this one but we need to understand the mechanisms because then we can do something to reduce the risk right and there's still a lot to learn from the current sars code to virus i understand fabienne and then

doubts project group leader of epidemiology of highly pathogenic micro-organisms at the robert capa institute thank you so much for your time. now from the virus to the solution vaccines time for questions sent over to derrick williams. well approved vaccines be as effective against new variants of sars cove 2 as they were against the old one the hope is they will be the fear is they won't be there's been a lot of conflicting information churned out on this topic already and with around you know a dozen different vaccines approved in various parts of the world at the moment and and new variants being identified same in every day that mountain of conflicting information just grows and grows the most striking report so far that

a new variant was was steamrolling over a vaccine came from south africa the small study it was based on left some open questions but it did indicate pretty strongly that as for the zeneca vaccine didn't do a very good job of preventing mild or moderate disease caused by a variant and wide circulation in the country that evidence was enough to prompt the south african government to decide to start using the johnson and johnson vaccine on its health workers instead. so yes there are signs that new variants could have an impact on effectiveness in some vaccines but i'd like to add my voice to a growing chorus that includes many researchers who worry that all the hyped up reporting on variance and studies involving them is actually counterproductive not

only because it frightens people but that it does so most of the time for no good reason the vaccines currently approved are based on a range of different platforms that stimulate the immune system in different ways some of them might prove less effective against new variants others more so the thing is even when the virus changes which it will continue to do we can respond like the government in south africa by switching tracks we now also have the technical ability to tweak some vaccines quickly to respond to mutations in the virus so i at least have come to a decision not to let any fears about new variants keep me up at night. now derek williams there in speaking of switching tracks the german government has

just approved astra zeneca for people over the age of 65 the vaccine from the british swedish pharmaceutical has so far been only didn't say for people under 65 the government hopes the new rule will help speed up vaccination here in germany. and that's it for the day from me in the team here in berlin thanks for keeping us company.

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is the news live from berlin a year after corona virus forced china into shutdown and setting off plans to bounce back the country shifted its focus his focus from fighting the virus to longer term economic goals also outlines a lecture about tightening its grip on hong kong. and on the 1st papal visit to iraq pope francis will urge the number of christians to stay put and help rebuild after years of war and persecution.