says meeting in stock home have been toughing it out whether the block spending rows should be tightened and a dangerous dependency, how moldova aims to end. its reliance on electricity is applied by russian back to separate this data we business on robots in berlin. welcome to the program. for the 1st time a european company has hit the half a trillion mark luxury group, l v m h reached a market capitalization of over $500000000000.00 this week, the owner of brands including lou. if we talk to your and tiffany is writing a search in luxury spending, the sector is the major growth in the u. s. and among china's middle class, in particular, elvia mates has seen it share price increased tenfold over the past decade. well, let's just take a look at your most valuable companies as he can see, m h tops the tree by some distance in terms of market capitalization is actually just below $500000000000.00 since crossing that threshold earlier in the week. second is

danish pharmaceuticals, multi national nova nor disk. and then in 3rd is the world's largest cosmetics company, l'oreal so notably, no tech firms or energy firms and the top 3 in europe. and as i mentioned earlier, maybe has benefited from a booming luxury goods market. have a look at how that's growing over the past decade. it took a big hit during the pandemic, as you can see here, but is now surging once again, way past pre pandemic levels. where we can now speak to rome, bore, who is global head of consumer and retail research, actually h s b c. thank you very much for joining us on the program. so just tell us what is elvia it's doing, right? they're doing a lot of things right? i think, i think clearly what we've seen over the past 3 years is an acceleration of market share gains, great visibility, very high margins. and what's happening now is you're seeing quite a few earnings upgrades coming through. i think fundamentally,

we had underestimated the impacts of the reopening in europe, even more so in the u. s. and now you have chinese consumers coming back and they're moving the needle quite significantly. and that is what is surprising, those to see that luxury brands are doing say, well, when we have so much about cost of living crises in various parts of the world and, and various financial strains on people. why is the luxury market, i mean, bounce back and then some, hasn't it since before the pandemic? how's that? how's that happening? well, i think, you know, it's a period of time probably as well when consumers need a bit of escape ism and to be fair. the consumers who are purchasing luxury have relatively high financial means and are not completely immune, but obviously more resilient when facing inflationary pressures. and when you've been stuck at home for so long, i think you know, you aspire to trouble, you aspire to, forgetting what we've just all been through. and there's absolutely no need to buy

luxury. but again, what she puts a smile on your face, luxury changes your perspective. luxury enables you to move to more positive psychological place, i guess. and of course, a lot of people saved quite a lot of money during the pandemic as well. we can remember that people are savings when you read a lot of pent up demand savings that you can tap into certainly. and then making the most of that, what do you think it says about europe that it's elvia and h, that is, it's most valuable. company and not, you know, for example, a tech firm or, or the energy firm like what would be the case in other parts of the world? well, i just cover discretionary consumer company, so it's difficult for me to comment on the take, or other verticals or other sectors. but what i would like is what i mean is i want to say about how your it's managed to market itself as a sort of luxury capital of the world. yeah. well, i think, you know, i think it goes to culture. you know,

i think it goes to the comment of down on the ceo of, of the image saying review to does not sell handbags. we sell culture. and once that's the premise, then there's almost no limit to what you can sell. ok. so what we've seen also is a form of di risking, i think the luxury market 25 years ago was, you know, relying on the japanese consumer pre drove and more of the chinese consumer. now it's about global wealth. and again, global culture. and so it's a much more balanced industry than it used to be in. it's partly de risk from that point of view because you're relying on again global well to not one single national you moving, moving the needle for your, for your business. so does that mean we should expect to see the luxury market expanding even further because of the past few decades? you know it's, it's just been crying and growing. we've got a rebound now, but is that something that's going to continue? yeah, i think there is

a kind of confounding nature of growth. i think the u. s. market is broadly speaking still in emerging market for latree. there's a lot of wealth, but you did not have the awareness, the culture, the appetite for those goods. and now you're aware, and you're willing, i think you have a lot of local clients, those who are ignored literally for decades. if you think about the local french, italian spanish consumers. if you think about in asia, the local tie or singapore and consumers, they were left out because you didn't really need them. you know, you needed in italy to speak, japanese, korean, mandarin, russian, and english to, to go that. and then suddenly the world shot. and you started to pay attention to the local consumers in those local markets. and so i think that's the silver lining of prove it. you know, you finally did the work, you finally understood what locals were going after. you are not just relying on the hypothetical. come back of tourists, so yeah i, i,

i am bullish for the long term in terms of the compounding nature of growth because you still have so many people you can recruit within the pyramid of luxury and rumble from hsbc. thanks so much for bringing your insights. on this, thanks for having me. now let's take a look at some of the other global business stories that are making the news. germany. my narrowly dodged the recession in the 1st quarter of this year. the latest official data shows that gdp remained flat from january to march. growth figures came in short of the site rebound that was expected. the energy crisis continues to weigh on. europe's biggest economy. a rail work is in germany could soon go on strike again with the trade union threatening to bring the country's rail service to a standstill for weeks. the union is demanding a raise of at least 12 percent for its members. we'll income in germany has been under pressure for 2 years with inflation high than waste growth. me while

e u. member states are struggling to reach an agreement on the future of the blocks debt rules. finance ministers have been meeting in the swedish capital, stockholm some member states allowed that debt levels to surpass the committed levels during the pandemic. now a rift is formed and how strict the rule should be in future. the i m f is among those urging e countries to tighten their belts as the to we is bent. rigate can explain the inflation rate in the european union is way too high. one way to curb it is to lower public spending and public that that's a recommendation by the international monetary fund. and the european union is willing to review of the call. that's why finance ministers in stockholm are deliberating, a reform or that druids in the european union. the frugal states like germany insist that there pruitt's have to be tough and lead countries to lower the depth in the end. but other countries heavily indebted like greece or italy insist on

lose the rules more flexibility. the fierce fight is going on behind closed doors. no, but it shouldn't take too long because markets don't appreciate fighting and instability . the ministers are aiming to come up this a solution until the end of this year bantering, it's reporting from stock home, they're staying in europe. moldova wants to win itself off. energy supplies from moscow in terms of gas consumption. this has already been largely achieved. there, however, almost 80 percent of the country's electricity is still obtained from the russian back break way region of trans nestea. and since the invasion of ukraine began, that's become an even bigger problem. it's often called the last stronghold of the soviet union. trans nestea is internationally recognized as part of mold over the region broke away from old open government control 3 decades ago,

with the help of the russian army. now moscow backed oligarchs, roo, here, trans mystery as main export is electricity going to the rest of moldova. it's produced in a gas fired power plant. russian state own gas company, gas prom supplies, trans mystery out with natural gas for free. the separatist power plant generates nearly all old overs power and that in turn finances, the regime entrance nestea. they use this money for budget and for for benches, for solis, so for reduce, for other social expenditures that in yester river flows along much of the dividing line electricity from trans nestea is sold at a high price on this side. the power bill for surrogate literacy brewery is around $3000.00 euros per month. that ends up in the pockets of the moscow back

separatists with russia waging war against neighboring ukraine. he says, this can't go on basically, or because of the conflict, of course we are in a way worry about the situation. ah, to be honest, as a business person, for me, it's important to get a cheaper electricity. this is what is important for me because i need to get to have my business going. moldova, these ending this dependency as a high priority. it wants to stop the money transfers to trans mistrial. without these guys for free their economy, their budget to their social are safe to not nothing can actually be upkeep. upkept sir. gay literally is happy that the electricity is flowing even though the price has almost tripled in a year. soon he should be able to get his power from romania, new lines or plan to connect the 2 countries, electric grids,

financed by western development banks. among others. then trans nestea will lose a t source of income and become even more isolated. i'm just finally here on d to we have business. if i asked you to picture a robot security guard that i regard, even i reckon you perhaps conjure an image, something like a terminator or, or robo cop. but the reality it turns out is rather different. this little fellow is as center and has been put to work by a swiss security company. it uses cloud based artificial intelligence to navigate tough to rein, including snow, a center, already protecting sites, including the company's railway depot. it's designed to patrol the area, produce daily security reports, and also supports the company's human guard team. i think he's like, cute muscle for man, the business name,

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denial in the land of the perpetrators starts may 6th on d, w. hey david. evelyn sharma. welcome to my podcast. love the matter that i and life celebrities influences and experts to talk about all plain love from day to day. nothing less because all these things and more and then you'll see them off the pot . come make sure it's a tune and wherever you get your path and join the conversation because you know it love matter. mm hm. ah, frankfurt hawk international gateway to the best connection, sophia road and radio. located in the out of you, robert, you are connected to the whole world of experience outstanding shopping and dining offers. enjoy our services. be our guest at frankfurt airport city,

managed by fraud or ah ah ah, this is dw news live from berlin, russian cruise missiles and drones hit again targets across ukraine. at least 19 civilians are dead and several cities. keith is preparing a counter offensive, hoping that new western weapons will help push back moscow's folks also coming off .