>>abirached: this week on world business... >>: diverse and different, but determined to find common ground. asean edges closer to becoming a unified economico. : plus the biotech hub being built in the heart of scotland. and the companies already creating a stirin the region. >>: potentially ... the lab market is worth about 50 million pounds we think worldwide. >>abirached: hello and welcome. i'm raya abirached and this is world business, your weekly insight into the global business trends shaping our lives.

the association of south east asian nations or asean is a diverse club which ranges from poverty stricken myanmar, to affluent singapore and military dictatorshipsto robust democracies. however despite their differences, its members are moving steadily towards becoming a unified economic bloc. >>reporter: a colourful cultural show kicked off the 16th asean leaders' summit in hanoi. >>reporter: but as the leaders took the stage for the ceremonial show of unity, there was a notable absentee, with thailand's prime minister forced to skip the summit due to serious unrest at home. >>: it was a rare blot on an otherwise mostly upbeat event at which the 10 members looked to build on the progress they've been making toward becoming an integrated regional community by 2015. >>reporter: vietnam's prime minister told the audience that it was now

key that asean find ways to harmoniously combine national interests with broader common regional interests to build on their unity in diversity. he said history has shown asean's vitality and adaptability in the face of challenges. >>reporter: the region showed plenty of resilience too during the recent economic crisis. >>maelzer: asean countries weathered the economic downturn much better than might have been expected especiallygiven that most of the economies are still heavily dependent on exports to the west. some countries didn't even slip into recession and vietnam and indonesia in particular continued to post very solid economic growth in 2009. >>reporter: growth across asean averaged an enviable one and a half per cent last year, and is expected to come close to 5 and a half per cent in 2010. >>: general electric's

southeast asia division -- with diverse interests including in the infrastructure, aircraft engine and power businesses -- says it had a surprisingly solid 2009 with plenty of reason to be optimistic about the year ahead. >>dean: the oil and gas business has remained very strong for us. health care was also very strong for us last year and particularly strong going into this year driven somewhat by some of the stimulus spending some of the governments in asean implemented in order to keep their economies going despite theirdownturn exports from their countries. and then we've got an industrial business selling into the construction industry. that's also very short term and again that's come back very strongly so far this year. >>reporter: under the asean free trade area or afta agreement, duties on intra-regional trade in most goods havebeen eliminated or slashed to near zero. >>: asean has also struck free trade deals with the big east asian economies of china,

japan and south korea -- the so-called asean plus 3. >>razak: east asian integration is our long term goal and a lot of countries believe that this is a natural thing to happen. and of course if you look in terms of where the engines of growth are going to comefrom globally, it is going be asean and asean plus 3. >>leng: what we have seen last year during the global economic slump was that exports to china from malaysiaas well as other countries in asean has actually risen by more than 100 per cent so that has helpedto offset some of the decline in exports to the us. >>reporter: but closer integration with giant economies like china's brings undoubted challenges as well as rewards.

>>razak: as you enter into more and more free trade agreements, you are exposing yourself. so for us to get the most benefit from all these free trade agreements is for us to ensure that we strengthen our competitive strength that we have, and ensure that our firms can exploit the bigger market and not perish in the environment that is going to be more and more competitive. >>reporter: to try to boost competitiveness and attract more foreign investment, malaysia's government for one is preparing to enact a raft of economic reforms. >>: it's a welcome move. >>dean: i see china as both a good customer but also a very strong competitor to asean and i think it's critical for asean to be successful, they need

to continue to liberalize and reform their economies likewe are seeing in malaysia for example and continue to move up the added value scale. >>reporter: the community the leaders hope to forge by 2015 will be based on 3 main principles: economic integration, socio-cultural integration, plus a secure and politically stable community. >>pangestu: there's a lot that we have to do in the next five years. and from an indonesian perspective we feelthat the economic community pillar is going forward quite well, we are 75 per cent on target right now but we need to strengthen the other two pillars and they need to move in parallel so we cannot have an imbalance. and second, we must ensure that asean remains in the central position in terms ofbuilding the east asia regional architecture. >>reporter: the resilience this region

of more than 550 million people showed in the face of the crisis has underlined just how important a role asean can play globally. >>: but the leaders who gathered in hanoi know that to ensure strong, sustained growth they need to liveup to the slogan of this year's summit and continue to transform their vision for asean into action. >>abirached: the fifa 2010 world cup is nearly upon us, the first time africa has hosted the event and a chance for the continent to shine. but the odds of an african country winning the tournament are stacked against them. one major cause is malnutrition which hampers the continent's chances of producing world-class football players. >>reporter: world cup fever is running high in south africa.

the event is a major chance for both the continent and the country to showcase itself to the world and even a chance to dream about african glory in the tournament. >>: but at fifa's first medical centre of excellence in africa at johannesburg, there's less optimism. there may be plenty of grass roots players awash with natural talent in africa, but few will become stars, because poverty and poor nutrition hold them back. >>constantinou: if you have a ferrari that is popped in the driveway, it may be able to do good things but it's not going to do anything good unless you have the right type of fuel and that you have a full fuel tank to do it with...that's the same as with a football player. talent might be there in terms of certainaspects but if you're not optimally ready to do good performances, you're not going to be able to, so if your nutrition is lacking, you're not going to have the energy, you're not going to have the speed, the agility and the endurance to be able to perform

at your optimum. >>reporter: that's why a programme in alexandra tries to channel children's enthusiasm for the game. here football lessons run in parallel with lessons on a healthy diet. >>sibaca: nutrition is huge part of our work here in alex and throughout play soccer. we work in places where some kids don't get a meal every day. a meal is such a luxury, as a matter of fact, the schools around us in alex and other parts of jo'burg they will provide one lunch meal at school because they know that is the only meal the kids are going to get. >>reporter: one african in four suffers from malnutrition, while four in ten children under five are stunted. that's 57 million youngsters who are short for their age -- it's a real issue that has ramifications far beyond football. >>naidoo: if we don't deal with the challenge

of nutrition in pregnant mothers and children under two, if we fail to deal with that nutrition challenge in that period then, even if that family wins the lotto, the human potential of that child is permanently affected. >>reporter: that's why african leaders and international health experts came together in johannesburg recently -- they want to build a grass roots movement to offer hope to the next generation. >>odinga: nutrition is a subject that appears like a new subject in many of these nations, but it is a very important subject. i wish that many countries, all the countries of africa could have nutrition as ranking high in the policy-making organization. i wish they could make it very important, because it isthe beginning. if you don't have your people fed properly where are you going to? what is

the future of your nation? >>machel: we have a monumental task in front of us. it will take us actually, twenty, fifty years to overcome completely malnutrition....it is true we need fortified food. we need to make it not only fortified but to make sure it gets to everyone. >>reporter: one vital player is the global alliance for improved nutrition, or gain which is implementing public-private partnerships to fortify staple foods across the continent. >>: south africa has led the way - but wants industry to reach more children. it passed legislation requiring millers to add vitamins and minerals to flour. the country has now successfully combated diseases associated with poor diet. such as spina bifida and neural tube defects. >>davies: what we know is that low-income people tend to consume only a few foodstuffs and in south

africa, maize meal is the main one, as well as brown bread. if we add essential vitamins and minerals to those then we will be improving the nutritional content of the food that those people eat. >>reporter: yet with africa facing higher food prices, climate change and the fallout from the global economic crisis, there's concern that the continent won't even be able to meet the un's millennium developmentgoals -- one of which aims to halve the number suffering from malnutrition by 2015. >>ameringen: one of the ...goals is to reduce child mortality, and if so you want to reduce it then, a third of that is driven by under-nutrition, so how do we get at that? and i think that policy-makers are starting to recognise that, so there is definitely progress. >>reporter: it's progress that health

experts are starting to see in a young generation of african children through food fortification. it helps that good nutrition now has a strong ally - the game of football. >>jordaan: sport can serve as prevention of many of the health problems that we have, and so if we can develop in our country to make healthy lifestyle a priority including all of the health challenges we have then also we will ultimately reduce the expenditure and the focus on providing the remedial side of health. >>reporter: certainly if africa's is as enthusiastic about football as it is about addressing malnutrition, thenwith the impetus built by this event and efforts by companies and alliances alike - future world cup glory could be easily within its grasp.

>>abirached: still to come on world business... >>: throughout history scottish scientists have changed the world, now a new biotech hub is hoping to set the country's future inventors on the path to success. >>: and we head to dubai to find out how the sport of princes is handling recession. >>: polo and palm trees....and the rest in just a moment on world business... >>abirached: for such a tiny country scotland has consistently punched above its weight when it comes to innovation. penicillin, the telephone, the bicycle, radar, the pneumatic tyre, even the television you are watching this on, were all given to the world by scotsmen. and now a new development is taking place in the country's capital

to make the most of scottish developments in biotechnology. >>reporter: welcome to scotland's new medical city. on the southern fringe of edinburgh, a two billion dollar project is underway to turn this site into one of the world's top ten bio-science centres. >>savill: we believe that if we can assemble a cluster comprising industry, the national health service, health provision in the hospital and the academic activity in the university we will achieve most quicklyimprovements in wealth and health . >>reporter: already scotland is home to 20 percent of the uk's life science companies, attracting more than 650 million dollars annually in research funding. on this site there are currently over 70 companies working alongside edinburgh scientists, including 17 of the world's top pharmaceutical firms. the aim now is to come up with more of their own. >>seckl: we are really smart at coming

up with new concepts and new ideas and it ought to be possible for us - many of us like myself are clinically qualified and see patients in between doing the research andthe teaching students - we ought to be able to come up with a number of ideas that can be taken allthe way through and into treatments for our patients. >>reporter: professor peter ghazal has done just that. >>ghazal: as we move forward into the future medicine and treatment of disease takes a rather linear growth overtime. our science is actually undergoing exponential growth so our challenge is really how do we connect the two together and of course what that is all about is translating our basic science into real world products and that is the business of business. >>reporter: the creation of three companies including arrayjet, whichuses inkjet print-head technology to print biological samples such as dna onto glass

slides. the company, which has a team of 15 engineers and scientists, has an annual turnover of around one and a half million dollars. >>: another entrepreneurial husband and wife team in the university is behind the creation of this product. >>gregory: it's a kit which allows for the removal of dead cells and dying cells from cell cultures. the cell cultures are used all over the world for a wide variety of biomedical research purposes. >>reporter: the future for this little box looks encouraging. >>murray: potentially ... the lab market is worth about 50 million pounds we think worldwide. our technology has applications for the down streaming in other markets such as regenerative medicine, therapeutic cells, therapeutic proteins and production of our own therapeutics but those are larger markets further downstream from where we are at now. >>reporter: but the creation of these new companies has brought its own challenges.

>>seckl: in the past two or three years we have begun to generate the translational - the concepts that go from the bench to the bedside - the translational ideas that begin to spin out companies and colleagues have got very enthusiastic about doing this and the first few companies have started and the big question is where do you put them? >>muriel: right now it's just a field. but by the start of 2012 this 10-thousand square metre site will be a state of the art laboratory and office complex, home - it is hoped - to the next generation of cutting edge life science companies. >>reporter: entrepreneurs here at edinburgh welcome the move. >>murray: i think we might have hit the ground running faster sooner in that help with that kind of infrastructure would have been able from the point of view of practical things like space and access to facilities but probably the biggest gap that we have that it might have been able to fill is the kind of commercial know how so if there were access to people who can give

you common sense, practical help in things that you've never encountered before commercially i think that would make a big difference. >>reporter: help with funding too is critical. >>gregory: you are forever chasing the next investment because the investments tend to be small so before you get profitable you need to be able to get the money in to have a chance of making something work and a lot of companies sink because they can't do that. >>reporter: there is plenty of money being pumped into this project. the new 96 million dollar scottish centre for regenerative medicine is the next flagship institution to be completed on site. last year scottish companies and organisations in this field made breakthroughs in synthetic blood and embryonic technology and began stem cell trials for corneal blindness and stroke. >>allison: life science is identified as one of the seven key sectors of our governments economic strategy. life sciences contribute today

over three billion pounds sterling to the scottish economy and employs over 32 and a half thousand people so today it is delivering... and obviously as scotland's main economic development agency scottish enterprise we are fully committed and supportive. >>reporter: edinburgh university's biology and medical departments have been less successful in comparison to some others like microelectronics in forming and spinning out companies - but that could be about to change. >>savill: our medical school has a 300 year history and you can build up a lot of research momentum in 300 years. >>reporter: momentum, it is hoped, that will propel edinburgh's new bioquarter into the next century of excellence in its field. >>abirached: polo has been played in one form or another for over two thousand years and could well be the world's oldest sport. it's flourished through the decline of empires, world wars and numerous economic catastrophes, so a little thing like the recent financial crisis should have

no serious impact on the sport. but, as i found out in a recent trip to dubai, the game has felt at least some tremors from the recession. >>reporter: it's spring in dubai and the city's haut monde is enjoying its time in the sun at cartier's fifth annual international polo challenge. the company has now been sponsoring polo tournaments, and teams, for 25 years. >>fornas: i think that polo is an art du vivre, that it is an art du vivre linked to elegance and refinement and this is exactly what cartier is and a long time ago we thought that this exclusive sport should be part of the cartier sponsorship. >>reporter: and polo is certainly exclusive. each player needs between four and six horses, or ponies as they are called, per game ... and the very least you can expect to pay for just one pony? >>reid:

that's like saying the cheapest car. i don't know. ten thousand dollars something like that. it's very hard to put a price to it. safety is the most important thing. you have got to be happy to dig deep, let's put it this way. >>reporter: at this level though, seventy thousand dollars might be a more realistic figure. >>: but it's the expensive nature of the sport and the fact that its devotees are, for the most part, made up of high net wealth individuals that makes companies like private swiss bank, julius b r, whichhas some 150 billion us dollars under management, want to get involved. >>meier: it's a sport that from an image transfer point of view is ideal. it's a high class sport, it's a boutique, it's a boutique event. that's the way we want to be, the way we want to be perceived. >>reporter: it's been estimated that it costs an estimated one hundred thousand dollars per tournament to enter a team but julius b r would not be drawn on the bottom line of its involvement.

>>: but the bank is confident the benefits outweigh the costs. >>meier: it's always hard to know the right numbers to it in the end but yes of course you want to see some return to it. there are different ways to measure it.... in the end it's how the clients appreciate it. how the brand can be transported through this platform to the market. >>reporter: and tournament like this do provide companies a good opportunity to reach out to a captive audience with plenty of cash. and even with its recent financial crisis the seriously rich in dubai remain, seriously rich. >>fornas: we've done quite well during the crisis even in dubai. dubai, abu dhabi, qatar ... we are the numberone luxury brand in the region ... maybe the traffic was a bit less in some of our boutiques but the big things were sold as before. >>reporter: although, according to professional players such as richard le poer, who has been playing the game since he was nine years old, the global recession has affected the sport.

>>poer: definitely - a lot of sponsors have dropped out, a lot of patrons have pulled out because they play mainly for pleasure and when you can't afford it that's the first thing you give up. i mean definitely for the professionals it's definitely got tougher in the last two years. >>reporter: one region where the game is going from strength to strength is in asia, where the rapidly developing economies are helping create a new generation of the super rich. cartier is now considering sponsoring a new tournament in china. >>fornas: we are the number one luxury brand in china and we went there very strongly with very huge investments in 2001 and we have already in mainland, china, i'm not talking hong kong and macao but in mainland china, we have 33 boutiques at the end of the year we will have 37, 38 boutiques. >>reporter: and, according to cartier, polo fits in well

with the aspirational yearnings of country's nouveau riche. >>fornas: it is very elitist, it is very sophisticated game, it is not so very much a democratic game i would say but you see more and more polo games and i was quoting china and the way want their cups. they want their cup in beijing in shanghai and many other places so polo continues to penetrate on a very selective and elitist way. >>reporter: there's a good reason polo is known as the sport of kings and with a track record of some two millennia there seems little doubt, since the new kings and queens of the world's monied elites seem willing to pay to be part of it, that the game should continue to thrive for the next thousand. >>abirached: that's it for this week's world business. thanks for watching. we'll see you again at the same time next week.