we are joined by angie lau with a look at stories making headlines in asia. y to you, emily. a global slowdown has pushed the yen to its highest since november, 2014. the currency wrapped up its best week and 6.5 years of deepening unease, and investors looking for haven assets. japan posted an 18 straight month of current account surplus in december. economy struggling to produce sustained growth and inflation. is japanese cosmetic maker opening its first mastic plant and nearly four decades and expects a 50% jump in output along with lower costs. the key is robots. the factory will bring labor costs down by as much as 25% over the next 10 years. japan's aging population and string key force allows companies to ramp up production to automation without firing staff. the number of people killed in saturday's earthquake in taiwan has reached 37 with at least 100 still unaccounted for. taiwan is hope to chat making suppliers to apple and others, but most of them are closed for the lunar new year holiday. taiwan -- makes parts for the iphone and says it expects mo

i am angie lau, coming to you from our asian headquarters in hong kong. in the asia-pacific, this is where we are at. paring backities gains of the morning. we have a stronger aussie dollar ahead of the minutes for the february meeting. 7% gains5 paring back yesterday. close to 1% down right now. a stronger yen, safety haven. kospi, .4% higher. 1.18. at at $30 a barrel on reports that the saudi arabia will meet with russia to discuss the market. brent crude looking like this. the relief rally that swept through asian markets yesterday carried through the european section. we are seeing a mixed market. we have more on this. coming in with action, ready to act? seems to be the favorite tool of central bankers , given there is a sense of doubt over what else is left. we know mario draghi favors the "whatever it takes" approach to market jitters and boost sentiment. that seemed to work in this case. basically, he is focusing on the recent global volatility, truly unprecedented. if that starts to affect the , and alsoility goal if declining energy prices conti

he told my colleague angie lau, watch what challenges david cameron will have to overcome to get a dealre countries in eastern europe who basically want to say we should object to britain's picking and mixing of what it can and cannot do with migrants, because this is going to destabilize the free flow of people around europe, making their lives more difficult as well. there are at least four countries in eastern europe who are rejecting strongly to cameron's proposals. the issue is, they don't have a lot of traction where it actually accounts, that is with angela merkel and francois hollande. tohink this one will be easy smooth over a for the next 48 hours, but this is the problem. other countries come back over and they say, if you gave this right to britain, why can we do the same thing? how integral is it for britain to remain in the new, and will david cameron get a deal? >> i think he will, because he set the bar pretty low. he has disappointed his conservative act ventures by going in and saying, it is important for us to get a better deal with europe, but they are saying, hold o

i am angie lau. ♪ emily: i'm emily chang and this is "bloomberg west."oming up, tim armstrong and yahoo!. what it will stand to gain or lose. plunging to the lowest level since 2012, the company announces a departure of the cfo. the struggling online customer reviews site, what kind of reboot of the need? india delivers a devastating blow to mark zuckerberg's free internet plan for the nation. we will debate the net neutrality ruling coming up. first, to our lead. has yahoo! found its first serious suitor? we have seen signs of the legacy member opening to selling, despite ceo marissa mayer's attempt to turn the company around. no former offer has been made yet, but verizon has said to have given aol ceo tim armstrong a lead role in exploring a possible deal. joining me now to discuss, president of aol content and consumer brown's -- brands jimmy maymann. what is your reaction to this story, that tim armstrong has been given some sort of a directive to look into buying yahoo!? jimmy: my reaction is there are a lot of similarities between yahoo! and our b

it's abenomics. .elcome to "first up" i am angie lau. hour,lia trading for an 1/5 of 1% higher.e do have a flat australian strengthening. there is speculation from traders that perhaps we will see a rate cut from the rba, but perhaps not tomorrow. underway, 1/10 of 1% higher. yuan is slightly weakening. futures in chicago pointing to a higher open. this is where we are now. higher despite ahi stronger yen. new data shows a surprise rebound in industrial output in japan, but headwinds on consumer spending. we have more on the latest data. spendingers aren't because their wages have not gone up. nothing new. retail sales data shows a decline in the pace for january. down 1.1%.ail sales the expectation was for a gain. it would have been the first rise in three months. the other key number is industrial production. january was a banner month for japanese industrials. factories producing heavy goods based on a gain of 3.7%, well above the estimates of economist, 3.2 percent gain, so that was the first gain in three months, and certainly an encouraging indication that the slowdown in

welcome to first up, i'm angie lau, coming to you live from bloomberg's headquarters.ur main story this monday morning here in asia, china has stepped up its efforts to restore stability in the economy, saying there is no basis for a creationist -- for appreciation. >> where did you go, joe? that was the question. i have been asking this repeatedly. since august, there was not a lot of comment. he had his deputy give a press conference at two days after that in august, or is in -- as in 2005, the architect of the yuan liberalization was on state media within 48 hours of that big the pegging from the dollar in 2005, this time, he was kind of silence. he had maybe a few comments of the g-20 meeting, he was not a davos.-- double -- joe resurfaced in a time magazine article where he basically went down a long list of concerns. , there is no basis fall, theing yuan pboc has been sending it since that august evaluation. he says balance of payments are good, he says outflows are normal. exchange rate is stable, even though it is down 1.25% again. -- there is outbound investme

i'm angie lau. let's check in on markets in asia this monday morning for us, to australia we go. 1%.tionallyally higher, 1/10 of australian dollar right now at 71 u.s. cents. let's head over to new zealand, and this is the view there. of 1%now it is 4/10 lower. we have the weakness in the new zealand dollar. growing pressure that perhaps the rb and said is going to have to react to cut rates on the heels of reduced dairy prices. we are counting down to the opens in japan and korea. pretty much every market pared back. below 16,000. chicagofutures in pointing to yet another lower open. this is possibly the reason why, check out the level of the yen right now. yen, and strengthening this is offsetting the outlook for exporters there. one market to tell you about is taiwan. -- thailand. they are celebrating a buddhist festival. china's ratio of debt to the size of its economy is expected to keep on climbing. how much longer is this debt going to keep mounting? >> at least seven out of 12 economists exp