>>this week on world business a look back at some of the best stories of the last year including... >>years of civil war and political instability have damaged sri lanka, but the country has the potential for serious growth. >>we are in the first phase of a 10 year period of growth. so in that sense, whether you lost the first year of it or not, there's still nine years of solid growth ahead of you. >>the coffee growing business brewing up in china. >>and how one man and his dog changed the fortunes of a tiny cheese factory in northern england

>>thanks ...give me a shout if it goes wrong again. you are very kind. why don't you come in? we arejust about to have some cheese; oh no not cheese, sorry, it brings me out in a rush, can't stand that stuff. not even wensleydale? >>hello and welcome. i'm raya abirached and this is world business, your weekly insight into the global business trends shaping our lives. this week we are looking back at some of the best stories of the past 12 months. a year which saw sri lanka hold its first general election after the end of nearly 30 years of civil war. the conflict has been hard on the country and political tension is still high. but sri lanka also has serious

potential for growth >>reporter: as sri lanka's elite look out on their horizon, they see incredible potential... an island nation at india's southeastern tip...that could become another economic power house in the region. >>statistically, sri lanka appears on course for its dream: the economy this year is expected to grow by at least 6 percent... and per capita gdp is already far ahead of india's. last year its stock market was the world's second best performer after russia. >>silva: most people expecting strong returns. and possibly it could even match last year returns or exceed it. >>reporter: such strong returns have already ignited the interest of investors who specialize in so-called frontier markets.

>>nirosh de silva, managing director of leopard capital sri lanka, is now raising money for the company's first two funds-a 100 million dollar private equity fund... and a 30 million dollar fund for listed equities. >>silva: we are in the first phase of a 10 year period of growth. so in that sense, whether you lost the first year of it or not, there's still another nine years of solid growth ahead of you. >>reporter: de silva and his team are now marketing their funds in singapore, hong kong, europe andthe us... expecting returns of 25 percent. courting western investors is difficult. they worry about war crimes allegations involving the tamil minority... as well as the country's safety and stability. >>peterson: political tensions here remain high and so does security. police checkpoints line the streets of the capital to stop cars at random. taking video

footage in public places is difficult. some observers believe such strong arm tactics by the government may keep western investors on the sidelines. >>reporter: to calm tensions... sri lanka's president has promised relief and reconstruction for areas devastated by 26 years of war. .. that means improving the island's infrastructure and raising living standards... particularly for the many tamils who are barely scraping by. >>the private sector appears to be leading the way. cargills, the largest grocery chain, interviews hundreds of young tamil applicants every week, including those from villages formerly controlled by the tamil tigers in the north and east parts of the island. >>reporter: ceo ranjith page, himself a tamil, believes sri lanka will solve its ethnic divide peacefully. as he sees it... terrorism and war are over. >>page: i think the west

should not be concerned that this thing is going to come up again. this was very sad what happened but it won't happen again. i think when we get older we become wiser. and iam sure that anyone who ever thinks that he can create such a thing i think he is foolish because we're moving on. and when people have employment and extra money to spend, they are not interested inthese petty things as sri lanka problems. they want to be ahead of neighboring countries. >>reporter: sri lanka's elites are confident that more and more outside investors will soon recognize the nation's economic potential... they say fears about political stability should cease once the april parliamentary elections are over. >>silva: after april that uncertainty factor will be addressed totally. and that will be very positive period for the country, for investors and for all stakeholders engaged in the markets.

>>reporter: asian investment is already significant. the chinese government is now investing heavily in a deep sea port... a power plant and this cultural center. >>domestic investment is also growing. the shares of some 120 companies are actively trading. this stock brokerage belongs to sri lanka's largest listed conglomerate... john keells holdings. >>reporter: brokering tea ... a product sri lanka is famous for... is also under john keells large umbrella of companies in a variety of sectors... >>the firm plans to rapidly expand condominium development to meet projected local demand... and luxury hotels to meet expected foreign demand. >>gunewardene: we are bullish about almost everything in this environment. this company performed well for 26 years during the war. after navigating through such stormy waters, the future post war

islooking very, very positive. >>silva: come visit sri lanka. take a look at this nice island, south of india and look at the tourism potential to india. look at the trade we could do with india. that'll give confidence that sri lanka is a great place to invest. >>reporter: those predictions are echoed by a growing number of financial observers who see a spectacular rebound ahead. there's no doubt... sri lanka is a frontier market worth watching. >>china is more famed for tea than coffee. but in the south western province of yunnan, a tenfold expansion of today's cultivated area is beingplanned. and one well known global coffee brand, which serves

the ever expanding china market, is now in talks to source locally >>reporter: the zhou family tend a soccer field sized plot some 90 km from yunnan's myanmar border. they switched from growing sugar cane to coffee seven years ago - and in doing so, doubled their income. at today's commodity price, this household of four makes around two and a half thousand us dollars annually. >>erluan: it doesn't take a lot of work - even the children and old folk here do it. and the income, well, it's quite nice. >>reporter: of course, the word nice is relative. but for the 40,000 coffee growing families acrossone of china's poorest provinces, only tending tobacco pays as well. >>yunnan produces 98 percent of china's beans, most of it for export. but its output hardly

registers on the world stage. coffee growing covers just 280 sq km, or around one sixtieth the size of beijing. >>reporter: brazil is the world's biggest coffee producer - with over 39 million bags in 2009. this is more than double the combined harvest of latin america's other big players. in africa, the beverage's birthplace, ethiopia and uganda lead the continent. while india and indonesia are serious asia producers. vietnam, with an 18 million bag harvest in 2009, is number two in the world. this dwarfs its neighbour's output - though china is doubling production to 1.5 million bags by 2015, by doubling the area under cultivation. >>reporter: it can do this as yunnan today uses only 10 percent of its territory that's suitable for coffee growing - and the province is keen to utilise much more, with an eye on the rapidly growing domestic market.

>>lu: china makes up one-fifth of the world's population. so, its potential share of today's globalcoffee consumption could be a hundred billion dollars. but at present, the chinese consume just around 4 billion dollars of coffee products. so there's good potential. >>reporter: sure, this heady comparison relies on coffee having a widespread appeal - not just among the urban middle class. that said, the big brands are now interested in working with the authorities to help develop the industry. >>lu: this will help the yunnan coffee industry with regard to planting technology and management. they may not expand their own plantation areas much. but we do see nestle, starbucks, maxwell house - they are very interested with the quality of yunnan's coffee beans. >>reporter: nestle and maxwell house already source yunnan beans for blending in their instant coffee.

as for starbucks, its increased interest makes sense as it has over 700 retail outlets across china,hong kong and taiwan. >>chongqing: starbucks declined an interview on the grounds that it's currently in the midst of negotiations with yunnan. but let's consider the maths. the brand currently sources most of its beans from abroad - which involves shipping costs and china's 20 percent import tariff. coffee sourced domestically would be up to 50 percent cheaper. yunnan coffee beans retail at between five and 10 dollars per kilo - enough to make, say, a hundred cups of coffee. the cheapest cup of coffee here fetches just under three dollars. >>reporter: at least one domestic coffee producer also intends to move up the value chain as the industry develops. dehong hogood is evolving from being a bean supplier to nestle to developing its own brand of powdered instant coffee. a state-of-the-art 10,000 ton annual capacity production

line will be operational in 2012. the company is now preparing to become china's first listed coffee producer to fund further expansion, serving the export and domestic markets. >>hongming: of every 10 tons of beans and powder, 8 tons of beans and 9 tons of powder are for export. the remainder is sold domestically. >>reporter: clearly, this local company believes profits are to be made competing elsewhere - mainly in asia - rather than banking on china's own consumer market. come 2015, china could start to bother other producers in the region - notably indonesia and india. the industry as a whole will surely be hoping that the middle classes continue to expand in developing countries - and that they'll add coffee to their shopping lists. >>this way, as china's supply grows, growing demand should maintain a worthwhile commodity price forall.

>>still to come on world business... >>how a crackpot inventor and his dog reanimated an ailing cheese maker. >>all the more for us and not a sheep to worry us. get off my cheese, get off. >>and capturing the glamour of the gridiron at nfl films >>we can take any team, no matter how rotten they are. we can take any game, no matter how dull it is and i'm convinced that any of the producers here can make it into some sort of a compelling or at least entertaining bit of programming. >>filming football at its finest... and the rest in just a moment on world business...

>>15 years ago wensleydale cheese was known only to a few aficionados in the north of england. but then a small clay man and his dog expressed their love for the product and overnight popularityand profits soared... >>reporter: wensleydale! a favourite of wallace and gromit and the great british public for more than 100 years. made here, in the northern british town of wensleydale since the 1890's, its creameryhas never stopped production. well nearly... >>hartley: what happened in 1992 was that after a rationalization done

by dairy crest, they decidedto close the creamery here at haws... >>reporter: which was bad news because 59 people employed here were made redundant and the creamerywas to be moved away from this countryside town to yorkshire's traditional rival...lancashire! >>hartley: although the 59 were made redundant , my self and 4 other colleagues came together to buy the creamery from dairy crest. and it was actually november 1992 that we succeeded in that missionand we took over this site here. and basically we started off with a very small workforce. >>reporter: and thus the wensleydale creamery at haws was reformed. >>hartley: and by 1992-1993 which was our first year of trading we had a turnover of 2.8 million pounds. >>reporter: ...a little over 4 and a half million dollars. today the creamery employs 200 full timestaff, has a healthy order book and even a visitor centre attracting hundreds of thousands of tourists. >>andrew: it very much tends to draw the public

to our visitor centre which you can see behind me and we get 250,000 visitors there every year and there is an opportunity for them to sample and try wensleydale cheese. >>reporter: and the reason for this almost bizarre level of interest - a little clay man and his doting dog.... >>it started back in 1996, when david hartley received a cryptic card from a then not so well known animation studio based in bristol. >>hartley: we got a card from the father of one of the directors of aardman animations saying that we should watch the particular wallace and grommit film that was being released: the close shave. christmas of 1996... and that we should watch and we will see in here something of interest to us. we didn't really know what it meant until the final scene, where wallace is trying to woo his lady friend, gwondolene into his house and he says:

would you like to come in? we are just about to have somecheese; and these immortal words: audio: oh no not cheese, sorry, it brings me out in a rush, can'tstand that stuff). and he says: audio: not even wensleydale?. >>reporter: and with that this little known cheese was introduced to the world, now the profits speak for themselves.... >>hartley managing director, wensleydale creamery this year our turnover should be in excess of 21 million pounds. >>reporter: that's 35 million dollars, not bad for a little factory in the north of england. the studio and the factory have also teamed up to produce a specially branded wallace and gromitt cheese. after all it seems that the wensleydale and wallace are a match made in heaven, especially with the public. >>reporter: do you know what is wallace and grommit's favourite food? >>1 - cheese/ wensleydale >>2 - cheese... wensleydale >>3 - wensleydale >>4 - wensleydale

>>reporter: well, not everyone >>5 - cheddar cheese? mozzarella? >>reporter: it is an english cheese, funny name... >>stilton? >>reporter: the success story does not end here. in early 2009 they signed an exclusive 1.7 milliondollar deal with us based anco fine cheese, the largest importer of specialist cheese to the us andcanada. >>andrew: the anco deal in north america and canada is very much new grounds for us and we would like to built on that. we are always looking for emerging markets, we understand that certainly far east, china have a huge population and their dairy consumption is rising exponentially so we would like to rely ourselves with those customers and be first into those markets. >>reporter: their forecast plan is to grow the company to around 45 million dollars within the next5 to 10 years. >>but despite its international ambitions, the firm is keeping its feet firmly on the ground, maintaining the traditions and heritage of the product.

the creamery still buys its milk from around 50 local farmers. >>moore: it works really well with wensleydale. we sell some of our jersey milk which goes into speciality cheese in the make when we have surplus milk. and also we supply our ice cream to their visitors center, which grows year on year. so its work really well for us. >>reporter: this farmer turned ice cream producer now owns 170 cows, selling his home-made ice cream to the quarter of a million people who visit the centre each year, which also provides a huge boost to the local economy. >>moore: we are in a really good area for employment. in fact there is no unemployment around here.it is a good local, thriving area to be in. >>hartley: i just want to built a successful company here in wensleydale where the suppliers, the farmers want to be associated with this business and do want this to succeed because they do like this feeling of localness which gives them a feeling of security.

>>reporter: a feeling of security that could be strengthened even further if the eu awards the wensleydale creamery a protected designation of origin status which would mean that only this region could produce the cheese, meaning a happy future for cows, cheese makers and fictional inventors alike. >>with revenues of around $8 billion and more than half its teams worth over 1 billion dollars, americas nfl is the world's richest sports league. a large part of the success is down to the image the game portrays of itself. and much of that is due to the work of an iconic american institution, called nfl films.

>>reporter: each year, in every corner of the united states...as summer draws to a close, the thoughts of sports fans turn to a game that has captured american hearts like none other... >>and rest assured...each season - every pass, tackle and touchdown, will be captured by nfl films... >>sabol: football's a great sport for film. there isn't another sport. baseball is all geometry. basketball is all armpits. that's all you see. football begins in the summer. you have the passage of the seasons. it ends in the winter. there's a storyline and a majesty about the sport that lends itself to film.... >>reporter: mpany's story began in 1962, when sabol's father ed, bought the rights to a championship

game for $3000, and hired his son as a cameraman..... >>sabol: when we started nfl films i wanted to show the game the way i'd experienced it as a player. with the eyeballs bulging, the veins in the neck showing and the snot flying and my father wanted to portray football the way hollywood portrayed fiction. with a dramatic flair. >>sabol: and that became the style of nfl films. >>reporter: it's a style that's won nfl films 97 emmys, and proved a vital tool for the league's marketing team, back at nfl hq in new york... >>signora: nfl films is a hugely important part of the nfl. they are able to capture the essence ofour game and tell the story of our game like no-one else. >>reporter: the films are created here in new jersey. from the numerous edit suites to a sound stage able to hold a 72 piece orchestra, it's an impressive enterprise, that

produces over a thousand hours of original programming every season, and covers more than 250 games, each with between 2 and 20cameras... >>swain: we can take any team, no matter how rotten they are. we can take any game, no matter how dull it is and i'm convinced that any of the producers here can make it into some sort of a compelling or at least entertaining bit of programming. >>reporter: and then there's the sound of football itself... >>sabol: the only way you can pick up on the passion of this sport, is hear how it sounds. >>reporter: over the years, more than 500 players and coaches have agreed to get miked up during a game... >>signora: teams want to cooperate. they want to grant the access that nfl

films is seeking, because they know the final product is going to be something they can be proud of. >>reporter: the final piece in the puzzle is the music score...which today, is all written and recorded in-house. >>robidoux: we've done stuff that's full blown orchestral. we've done more modern things like rock.we've done films that have been jazz, but the mainstay of that dramatic music is kind of in orchestral stuff, but we'll bring in all these other elements. >>reporter: but while musical styles may change, one thing remains constant. every frame of football gets shot on film...and over 47 years...that adds up to a lot of celluloid... >>jong: now every season nfl films shoots over a thousand miles of 16mm film and eventually it all makes its way into this specially designed vault. 12 degrees celcius so rather chilly. there's over 100million feet of film in here, around 50

thousand of these cans, and that makes this the world's largest sports film library. where does this go...? >>reporter: and everyone here knows that at least one keen observer is constantly checking to make sure their work measures up to standards set in the past... >>sabol: my father's 94 and he still calls me up...he's retired...he lives in arizona...he calls upevery week...i heard the music...the music's too loud...i didn't like the narrator... he's still right there...he's still up on the bid.... >>reporter: which is perhaps understandable...because you do get the feeling that just about all 300 staff here wouldn't mind being involved in the filmmaking process till they're 94 either.. >>reporter: it just seems like fun. i mean...is it work? >>sabol: nah. >>reporter: more then, a labour of love....and one that's help give football the right to call itself america's favourite game...

>>that's it for this week's world business. thanks for watching. we'll see you again at the same time next week.

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