>>reporter: we go on a crash course in car safety. >>the facility itself, the reason for its design, is actually knowledge; how we can gain knowledge from studying real world accidents. >>reporter: and the people who pay to get up close and personal with one of the planet's greatest predators. >>it was incredible i could have reached out with my finger and touched its nose. it was quite scary. >>reporter: hello and welcome. i'm raya abirached and this is world business, your weekly insight into the global business trends shaping our lives. mumbai's property market has staged a dramatic recovery

from the global financial crisis. the difference between this and previous real estate booms is the size and increasingly elite nature of the new buildings. >>the real estate business is booming in mumbai, with million dollar plus apartments under construction across the city. >>the biggest symbol of buying power is the new home of india's richest and the world's fourth richest man, mukesh ambani. his palatial tower dominates the skyline of south mumbai. according to reports, it has six floors of parking, a few swimming pools, a ballroom, a cinema and three, yes three, helipads. >>no wonder then india's rich are scrambling to get their own version of a luxury apartment. >>lodha: mumbai is a city of 22 million people or thereabouts. home ownership rates which are are in the range of 20 percent - extremely low by global

standards - a rapidly developing economy, and a land-locked island city 456 square kilometres in area - one-fourth of what the new york metro region has for example, but four times the people. so all these factors put together contribute to a very real demand - continues demand for all sorts of real estate. >>reporter: and buyers are lapping up developments as soon as they are announced. vijay srirangan has invested half a million dollars in an apartment in this building complex in a mumbai suburb. even though it won't be ready till 2013. >>srirangan: they've got gardens, specialized gardens planned. they've got the usual clubhouse; they've got tennis courts that are planned, other games facilities are in place, children's park. several of those features, the ability to walk around inside the complex - as you grow older that's an important element - all of these add up to making this premium, exciting, and worth spending on as far as i'm concerned. >>reporter: the world's tallest residential tower, world one is planned in central mumbai.

60 percent of its apartments have already been sold, with prices up to 17 million dollars. when completed in 2014, the building will soar 450 metres above the arabian sea, but it's not just status that's driving the reachupwards.... >>lodha: at that height the theoretical temperature drop is 5 degrees from the ground level; so the air up there is 5 degrees cooler than it is at the ground. >>reporter: this is just one of a new wave of super-tall apartment towers springing up around mumbai. these gated developments, a mark of india's rising economic clout, are not only changing the city's skyline but also its social fabric. they tower over crowded slums, which house half of the city's population, highlighting the growing gap between haves and have-nots in what is already one of the world's

most unequal societies. >>alam: our huts are made of wood, we've covered it with plastic sheets, but during the rains we have problems. its difficult for our children when the water floods these paths, and when the wind blows away the plastic sheets, our homes get flooded too. the government doesn't provide us with any facilities,there is no drinking water and no electricity here. >>reporter: but far from investing in the potential growth area of affordable housing, most developers are focusing on luxury apartments attracted by huge margins. >>in the lower parel neighborhood, developers bought former industrial land for around 66 dollars per square foot a decade ago. they are now charging 10 times that for their apartments. meaning they only need sell a handful to the super rich to recover costs.

>>varghese: the discrepancy in bombay is that at one level, you have people who don't have even the basic of human rights - whether it's the right to shelter, whether it's the right to water, right to food, rightto a clean toilet. and on the other side, you have big, big buildings coming of individuals, 60 floor buildings...the amount of energy used, the amount of water used, this means that the share which is available to the rest of the people in the city is drastically going down. >>reporter: but so too is the share of credit that has fuelled this boom, as banks become increasingly cautious about lending to real estate developers. also, india's interest rates have risen over the last year making it more costly to borrow money. >>in the long run, the quality of land a developer possesses will be crucial and that shows no signsof changing... >>khetan: land is very scarce in bombay, in the heart of the city of bombay, there is hardly any

land which issurplus land which is remaining vacant. so sourcing land is definitely a big challenge...we always believe no business can survive on 20 years' or 25 years' of inventory, so we always believe more inquality of the land rather than the quantity of land. >>reporter: yet with every developer rushing to announce premium projects, many believe the market is already oversaturated. >>vakil: there are 10,000 new apartments coming where the minimum value of the apartment is going to be a million dollars. are there enough buyers, all of us feel there are not enough buyers to take 10,000 apartments in the next 2 years. >>reporter: this segment has seen prices grow by 30 percent in the last year alone and such apartments may now be overpriced. at the same time, many buyers have their money stuck in the indian stock market,

whichhas fallen by more than 10% so far this year. >>vakil: this industry like the stock market has begun to depend on the confidence. and that confidence seemsto have been shaken. and if the confidence is shaken what a typical buyer would do is put off the purchase. that's what we are seeing today... >>reporter: yet despite jitters analysts expect only a mild correction in the prices of luxury homes of 10 to 15percent in the next few months. with demand expected to continue its upward climb once again, as the indian economy expands at 8.5 percent this year. >>reporter: after a shocking slump, the global car industry grew by 6.3% last year, with 59 million new vehiclesregistered. this year it's expected to beat 2007's record figure of 63 million. but as the number of drivers and passengers on the road increases, so does

the responsibility of car makers to protectthem. >>reporter: there is something oddly compelling about watching a car crash slowly unfold...and over the past 11 years....here in gothenburg....they've seen around 3000 of them... >>broberg: the facility itself, the reason for its design, is actually knowledge; how we can gain knowledge from studying real world accidents. >>reporter: knowledge gathered with the help of cameras that can record 200000 frames per second....each crash flooded with light...each car specifically painted to reduce shiny reflections.... >>broberg: matt and orange and you need to pick right colours so you can distinguish different parts from each other. >>reporter: globally, every year 1.2 million people die in traffic accidents....and a recent survey by consumer reports

found safety is now at the top of car buyers concerns... >>kirk: we know that customers put reliability and safety at the top of their things that they look for a new car. so it is important for us to show those qualities in our products. >>reporter: early crash testing could involve human drivers and passengers...., but in 1949 the first crash testdummy was invented...here they have a team of around 100, with 9 adult and 11 child designs.... >>jakobsson: the most important thing is that is repeatable; it does the same every test. and that it provides usgood data. >>reporter: filled with sensitive measurement equipment...each dummy costs on average around 200 thousand dollars....given the rather robust nature of their job...its no surprise they generally need to be repaired every 5 or 6 crashes.... >>jakobsson: heavy...18kg's....in order to know what happens in the crash we have to track the exact precisions

of the different body parts; that's why we have these symbols on the head and on the body. and then we have sensors on the head, the chest, and pelvis, and neck and this is collected. >>reporter: 90% of traffic accidents are due to human error with high speed, drunk driving and unused seatbelts the three leading causes of fatalities...but one factor that contributes to many crashes...simply taking your eyes off the road for too long ...something a generation used to fiddling around with mobile phones, ipods and satnavs would do well to remember... >>aust: if you look away for more than two seconds then the risk of something really unexpected happening isreally great. hugely increased? yes. but if you look away for less than that, there doesn't seem tobe a problem. >>reporter: car safety has improved remarkably over the past 50

years...as this video demonstrates.... >>and the technology continues to advance... >>tisell: we're not looking at the road because we're discussing where to find the things.....and suddenly we do have a pedestrian in front.....we didn't see the person....and you didn't touch the brakes? i didn't touch the brakes. >>reporter: but it's not foolproof...especially if the fool happens to be me... >>the pedestrian avoidance system reflects a safety trend we're seeing throughout the car industry... >>kirk: i think what we've seen over the last few years is technology that tries to predict when an accidentis going to happen and then protect the car and passengers before that accident takes place

>>tisell: well in this car actually you ought to have technology that actually can detect if you're tired......not by looking at you but it can feel how you move the car around on the road and what you're doingin the car. >>reporter: the facility that tests those technologies is in itself remarkable. an 850 tonne concrete block can be moved around on a cushion of air. part of the building can rotate 90 degrees to change angles of crash impact. given that each test takes between 1-2 weeks to prepare unforeseen incidents are rare...but the building is designed to withstand the unexpected..... >>broberg: all the walls here and the columns are designed to be able to withstand a crash of well the maximum that we can run here is a 12 ton truck an 80 km an hour and there's a lot of force. >>reporter: no volvo featured in forbes top safety picks of 2011...yet

a consumer reports survey found 70% of respondents placed volvo as their safest perceived brand... >>hales: i think volvo has positioned itself within the market about safety by taking that position they almost de-position other people. it doesn't mean that other cars aren't safe just because volvo is most safe. it just means that there is firmly where they mark their territory out. >>reporter: today car safety continues to develop in areas that you'd almost have trouble believing.... >>tisell: we are working on technology to stop the car in an intersection if you are not looking to the left or right. >>is there the chance then this car can start talking to other cars and they all start interacting? is that a reality, or is that still very much science-fiction? >>i would say it's a reality; everything moving in that direction. >>reporter: a direction that started in the early 30's....and one that over the decades....has

had an ever increasing impact on car design... >>still to come on world business... >>is shark diving in south africa a valuable tourist attraction or does it just put surfers and swimmers on the menu. >>and why the nba is on tour in africa scouting for talent. >>the away team... and the rest in just a moment on world business... >>the great white shark is one of the world's most terrifying hunters. they can grow up to 6 metres in length, weigh over 2 tons and are ferocious predators. despite that, plenty of people are happy to pay to get into the water

with them and in south africa this has created a profitable, but controversial industry. >>reporter: the film jaws has a lot of answer for in whipping up fear and misunderstanding about the great whiteshark...one of the world's greatest apex predators...but that terror has also lead to a tourist boom in south africa. >>scott: gansbaai ...200 kilometers east of cape town and home to the greatest concentration of great white sharks in the world ...and people just love to come and see them. >>shark-cage diving is now thought to be the number one adventure activity in south africa. in gansbaai alone, it brings in around 40 million dollars a year..with hollywood helping all the way:

>>doo, duh, doo, duh doo duh..you find its very much just like propaganda, the media portray things in a certain way. >>oh yes, jaws made me quite scared... >>reporter: kim 'the sharklady' maclean pioneered shark-cage diving in 1992. she is one of only a few recognizedoperators in south africa. she's passionate about the animals. >>maclean: i actually started the shark cage diving many years ago and really at the back of my mind was to educate people and to simply to take people out with their fear and bring them back with a new perception about great whites....it's a good thing because it is creating an awareness..and it is changing people from saying, you know, the only good shark is a dead shark to wow, what an awesome animal, what a graceful animal, rather than man-eating monster. >>reporter: around 30,000 tourists a year pay around 180 dollars a trip to be lowered into a metal

cage to come face-to-face with a great white. the predator is enticed toward them with a heady mix of chum...a soup of blood and fish entrails. >>it was incredible i could have reached out with my finger and touched its nose. it was quite scary. >>amazing...at first i was a bit like...i have to ask my husband if he's got life insurance before he went in... just in case...in case we didn't come back out...but to be honest i'd do it again. >>reporter: but shark-cage diving has not been without controversy. since its development in south africa in the'90's, it has coincided with an increase in a number fatal shark attacks further down the coast closer to cape town. many blamed shark-cage diving and said it attracted great whites to humans. however scientists and conservationists say there's no link.

>>titley: scientific research has been done which says that it doesn't and you tend to sort of like, if peoplehave done research, you tend to think that it's true. i think that it is an interesting situation because it is not done with other animals...but i don't think that there is any real connection between shark-cage diving and shark attacks. >>reporter: the great white has been protected since 1992 and its numbers have increased, particularly around the cape peninsula. nearly eight years ago, craig bovim was attacked by a 5 metre-long great white. hewas diving for lobster when he noticed the animal swimming parallel to him: >>bovim: he turned away and i lost sight of him and next moment i saw off the surface, which was this very large fin bearing down on me...and i knew he was coming to get me...and he did...and i tried to get out of his way unsuccessfully and by throwing my arms up at the last second,

managed successfully to avoid him biting my head. >>reporter: somehow, craig managed to get away and in spite of his injuries and survived to tell the tale. at first he was the poster-boy for the anti shark-caging lobby...he's now mellowed but still isn't entirely comfortable with it: >>bovim: just because they propose that it is good doesn't mean that it is actually sustainable and it is ethical...and it's an excuse...they are also making a lot of money out of it, so they have to justify their business. >>reporter: to protect swimmers and water sport's fans, shark spotters was set up in 2004 to cover the most vulnerable beaches, crucial in a country where tourism brings in around four billion dollars annually. with its system of flags - black means poor visibility - red means sharks nearby, it has made peoplemore aware. >>thurtell: i do surf various spots where there aren't shark

spotters...but it's nice knowing that there is somebody watching the water...not that they can always see clearly though. >>reporter: despite 4 fatal shark attacks last year and one death in january, humans are not top of the menu forthe predator who is much more interested in cape fur seals and fish: >>sikweyiya: i have quite a lot of respects for sharks and i think like, ever since i've worked with the shark spotters, i've changed the way i've thought , >>reporter: whilst the responsible shark-caging boats follow a self-regulated code of conduct, the south africangovernment is about to formalize the industry. operating licences will only be granted to those following strict guidelines...to make sure the only sharks out there.....are the ones swimming in the water. >>reporter: and staying in south africa now, where the us national basketball association is on a recruitment drive. it is

looking for the stars of the future across africa and hopes to create a massive new fan base on the continent. this revenue will be vital for the nba, as the game is in turmoil back home. >>reporter: this is not some new outdoor dance class. >>these are 60 of the most talented african basketballers, hoping to get selected by the nba. scouts have spent months finding them in countries as far afield as burkina faso and angola. and they have come for 4 days of basketball camp in the searing heat of johannesburg. ies for some to make it in the us league... ou want the best guys out there, guys who are going to compete and give you the best chance to win and if he comes from south

africa we'll take them and that is what is great about the sport of basketball. its now a worldwide sport it wasn't like that 20 or 25 years ago. >>reporter: in only a decade the proportion of foreign players in the us has doubled. the interest in african players comes down to simple economics. the nba is in turmoil; players are on strike over money and clubs are close to bankruptcy. new revenue may come from a fresh fan base in africa. >>bohuny: mportant that we expand globally now and to have players come in our league from all corners of the world its good for our league, it helps grow the game. >>reporter: the nba, sensitive to the charge that it's simply raiding the continent for talent says it's actively investing in long term housing projects in slums across

africa. you could say it's a soft approach to win over the hearts and minds of hundreds of millions of potential fans. >>bockman: y make it into the nba or a european club it will definitely be their ticket out of poverty. >>reporter: the lucky few are likely to be selected to attend us universities where they will get an education and play basketball. the really lucky ones might make it to the nba, where the average salary is 5 million dollars a year. >>ewing: e of the stars. if you are one of the lesser players that's what you get paid at .they are not goingto not pay you because you are from africa, europe or some other country. myself i was born in jamaica and moved to america when i was 12. i became one of the best

players in the game and i was treated very fairly." >>reporter: but it's away from the basketball courts where the real business gets done. at this reception in a johannesburg hotel, nba officials work the room trying to persuade african tv companies to broadcast games, and retailers to put basketball merchandise in stores. it's a tough sell on a continent where football is king. >>frame: p or needs to have an athlete that makes it into the big time, cracks the nba in the united states, starts to play with the majors. kids always aspire to icons. when they see one of their own play then that will follow. >>reporter: the nba won't say exactly how much - but is pouring millions of dollars into the game in africa and believes it

could be a billion dollar revenue stream within a decade. the vision of the sport is a commercially viable business right across the african continent. however the starting point of that is by growing the fan base. by growing the fan base we believe we will be able to grow our business revenues. >>reporter: for these kids who have made it this far already - the dreaming has just begun. want more than anything else. >>but first a reality check - there are less than 500 nba players currently under contract and the average career lasts less than 5 years. that's something to get your head spinning... >>reporter: that's it for this week's world business. thanks

for watching. we'll see you again at the same time next