ultra orthodox jews were holding a prayer and a dance celebration. of sex it is business news with my colleagues even beardsley to stay with us if you can for that there's always more on the website to w dot com i'm sorry kelly it's for watching. india's coronavirus crisis i d w news special we'll look at the dratted situation and delhi and the impact on the triple mutation on the country how can the rest of the world how what can be done for the people and how can india bring the situation under control as special edition of d w news on the cover oh no virus crisis in india starts today at 11 u.t.c. on d w. did

you get any benefit. well europe shows signs of economic recovery in the 1st quarter the french economy returns to growth germany will release its figures soon new cases of continued lockdowns pose a challenge to the continent. china kicks off a consumer products expo in hind part of its efforts to encourage more personal spending our chinese prepared to open their purses. and in colombia tens of thousands protest government plans to tax smaller incomes a plan the government says is necessary to offset economic damage from the pandemic

. and welcome to the show i'm stephen beardsley in berlin good to have you with us with the french economy has returned to growth posting 4 tenths of a percentage in growth in the 1st quarter figures are still being awaited for germany for later today they're expected to show g.d.p. falling during the 1st quarter as the country is hit with a devastating 3rd wave of the pandemic and germany is currently in a drastic lockdown as the country's vaccination effort is underway after a slow start consumption as well as the service sector have been hit hardest while the manufacturing sector remains relatively strong and is expected to help the german economy to a strong pick up in the 2nd half year. all right let's go to our financial correspondent conrad who isn't in frankfurt conrad good morning what are we expecting from these figures later today. good morning steve and the numbers are expected to be on the downside of one and

a half percent decline for the 1st quarter is being accepted expected people now at the exchange are really talking about what's going on at the moment in the current quarter and they are all predicting that the recovery is about to start the more we have people vaccinated them all those contact sensitive sectors of the german economy restaurants theatres and said trust can reopen. there's been some debate recently over to what extent these g.d.p. figures these growth figures really reflect the state of the current german economy for example what do you tell us about the difference between say industrial output and the service sector. yeah it's really a split picture at the moment we have on the one side really a strong recovery of the manufacturers in germany many german you know machines are in demand auto cars are in demand the fine technology made in germany that we sell so well was wide is really in great demand as asia has restarted its economy so quickly all the other hand we have as i said the rest. of people everything that's

contact that's not really working at and that's why you know the exact number we'll be getting is it's going to be minus 1.5 percent is it going to be minus 1.3 percent it's not really important what's really important is the psychology behind it and well i have to say many people are really fed up with the pandemic here in germany they want to get out they want to get out of the sun get some fresh air and hopefully that must mean that they will stop you know go shopping you mean their optimism is buoyed by an uptick in manufacturing ok kind of goes in there in frankfurt thank you very much. shift gears and take a look at asia china has long been the workbench of the world cheaply producing goods to be sold overseas beijing would like to change that in parts and that's part of the chinese government's current 5 year plan to make the country one of the world's largest consumer markets and this week in beijing wants to turn the labor

day holidays into a consumer extravaganza of sorts major online stores and millions of brick and mortar retailers across the country are participating offering new products promising high quality the major international brands are playing along with u.s. based tesla and dell switzerland swatch japan's she's sado offering their latest at major consumer events the goal is to turn workers into shoppers for years chinese consumption how grown at a steady rate of about 8 to 9 percent annually it was before it crashed to the coronavirus pandemic and then of course regaining some of that ground lately. and for more on this and. joined by the to be correspondent in taipei so it's good to see you china is about to host this 1st ever international consumer products expose recorded hine on why is it so important to beijing to increase this consumer sentiment in china. as you mentioned china kicks off

a series of high profile motional activities including the consumers' expo that we talked about here the man reason is because the consumption recovery remand balanced with some of the areas business models categories and regions in a comparatively slow mold and that the mantle of everett's shopper has not been fully satisfied so even though old the rebound in retail spending so far is us but the quoth rate is still much lower than the precaution $1000.00 pierrot so it's indication that there is still going to room to improve so i would say the probably prepared to make there were probably more people with money in their purses perhaps right businesses are still open are consumers right now ready to spend post pandemic. well if we look at the numbers yes china's retell fell 3034.2 percent year on year in march better than expected by many

analysts and better stronger than the jump in january to february and the retail revenue were 12.9 percent higher than march $29000.00 that's before the pen demick broke out however if we look at the household savings rate it remains stubbornly high in the 1st quarter so that means people still want to put their money in their pocket and if we look at the best nation situation it still has a long way to go before the hurt community can be achieved so the consumption recovery will be gradual in this sequence sequential basis there is a question for beijing how to draw all that savings out and get them to spend it so this 1st expo is happening in high not that's a location of special significance for beijing lately isn't it yes chinese president xi jinping he personally said that he wants to make high now on the free trade port and the biggest special you know make

a free trade area in china so we can see that his plan to build this place as a trading platform for international consumer goods and it's also a sign and also the national strategy to show that beijing wants to open up and to do the reform so asshole will be a window to see this master plan. in taipei it was a pleasure and we go down to some of the other business stories making headlines. the u.s. economic recovery picked up speed in the 1st quarter growing at an annual rate of 6.4 percent rebound largely driven by consumers who had stimulus checks to spend the u.s. is vaccination rollout also allowed many businesses to reopen their doors again. amazon's pandemic boom isn't showing signs of slowing down the company saying its 1st quarter profit more than tripled from a year ago to $8100000000.00 fueled by the surge in online shopping revenue came in at over 100000000000 dollars the 2nd quarter in

a row that the company has passed that milestone. pfizer has begun exporting its coke in 1000 vaccine from the u.s. 1st batches were sent to mexico it's possible now the troubled ministration rule barring exports has expired many countries where the virus is still rampant are struggling to acquire supplies. germany and france were c. $300000000.00 euros from the european union to cope with the effects of the pandemic germany says it will go to approving distance learning for students money comes from the reactor e.u. program which has a size of 55000000000 euros. all right over to the call cases are manias once again rates welcome tourists but a combination of factors is working against it from the pandemic to last year's war in the corner and the country's subsequent political crisis put particularly affected are mainly in restaurants where the traditional conviviality is becoming harder to find. mary smoothies margaritas and cheesecake demand his fooling

corsage treats initiative on people here have been saving their money and ruining cafes and bars due to the pandemic and the nagorno-karabakh conflict. this restaurant in central europe is normally popular as are students and businessman but not on tanya is great who had their restaurant survived the past year. and that it's about a 3rd of. our usual customers are definitely not ready to have fun yet the behavior that we can observe here has changed a lot our customers used to order alcohol celebrate and have family gatherings and small parties right now we can see that they're talking about current events people are anxious and i think that we're going through a major axis tensional crisis. that said it's a. tourism is another sector that has suffered last year there are many and tourism sectors revenue almost 90 percent analysed and the reason i will cite examples says

the new political crisis also having a negative impact on armenia sukanya me many people see the problems as linked to prime minister. people who are already starting to think that the current government so ineffective is might be better if somebody new would come and get things back on the control and start solving our problems. in 2020 armenians d.d.p. dropped almost 8 per cent. through was also hit hard some restaurants have either temporarily closed or have gone bankrupt altogether according to. the hearst or through its have no room for error she hopes that who it's spring just around the corner they move. will brighten up. or let's finish with a look a lot america is currently battling its deadliest phase of the crowd

a virus outbreak the country recorded 17000 new cases on wednesday i'm sorry on thursday rather and earlier this week a whopping $500.00 deaths in a 24 hour period that's offset the huge economic hit the country has taken during the pandemic the government wants to start taxing smaller income the plan has sparked massive protests for days colombians have seen protests. sting plans to boost tax revenues that they say would heed the poorest hardest the current of our spend them it has left the south american country in its worst recession in half a century the government says it needs to take drastic steps to avoid a runaway budget deficit it says the proposed tax reforms are crucial for colombia to keep its investment grade depth grading that they would lower the threshold at which people become liable for income tax the protesters say that it still poverty for millions just as the country enters

a new lock down. this march is the biggest display of outrage against this government against the tax reform. and against the labor and pension reform. the government has gone against the country and the country is responding in more than $500.00 communities. income inequality in colombia is among the highest in latin america about half the working population depends on informal work the world bank warned 4000000 people more than one in 10 threatened with poverty in the next few years undoing the successes of the last decade and that was before the proposed tax reform anger has long been growing against the government of president even but now as ducasse administration fails to get the pandemic under control that anger has boiled over. that's it for me and

the d.j. business team here in berlin for more on these and other business stories visit is a lot of dot com slash business find us facebook and twitter we're back a few hours with more business news so take care. scotland is on to crossroads the main parts of britain only. to be joined the e.u. long simplicity is dividing the country. in the run up to the elections the debate is heating out. couplings quest for independence. some cusco in europe. t.w. . these places in europe are smashing the right. step into

more playing to ensure it's a treasure map for modern globe trotters to discover some of the record breaking sites. in china and also in book form. the list. hello and welcome to focus on europe i'm liable it's nice to be back many of us are itching to travel again but the pandemic still poses huge challenges some travel agencies.