having a look at japanese trading company mitsui. its first loss in 70 years. joins us from tokyo. , the firstraordinary loss in the company's modern era. , what's happening is they had enormous write-downs. there as set value drop significantly due to the commodity route that started two years ago. trading houses tend to buy, or ,hey did, by commodities assets, when their value was very high during the boom. when oil was over $100 and copper and iron ore were higher, they would buy assets assuming these prices would continue in that trajectory. when the prices begin to drop about two years ago, unfortunately the asset value also dropped as well, so this is just the latest and biggest write-down for mitsui, and it's really putting a drag on their profit. now what about other trading houses like mitsubishi? are they going to be facing the same headwinds, having write-downs, seeing their profit margin squeeze? -- squeeze. >> that is absolutely correct. of the five biggest also announced a write-down, another might be on the way. mitsubishi, japan's largest tradin

mitsui mining and inpex ended in negativer to. it's also affecting bottom lines of japan's major trading houses. shares of mitsubishi corporation and mitsui & company were down sharply. both firms are projected to pose a net loss for the fiscal ending this month. airlines were high other cheaper fuel. ana holdings was up almost 1%. japan airlines rose 1.9%. so a bit of a lackluster trading day. many investors are holding off as we near the end of the fiscal year here in japan and await inflation data out on friday. giang nguyen reporting from the tokyo stock exchange. >>>> thanks veryry much for tha. moving on to other markets in the asia-pacific region, let's take a look at china, the shanghai composite, 2960 is the closing number there. dozens of domestic brokerages have reportedly resumed short selling. that's the practice of borrowing stocks to sell with the aim of buying them back at a lower price. it was said to be one of the factors behind a market crash last year. sydney's s&p asx 200 index falling also 1.13%. 5,084 is the

sumitomo mitsui and mitsubishi added 1.8% each. japex rose almost 2%. shares of toshiba climbed 5.8%. they agreed to sell 80% of its stake in home appliance. on friday we'll get the bank of japan quarterly sentiment survey and manufacturing data from china. we'll see how markets react to those figures. >>> it was a mixed day in trading. in china the shanghai composite edged up. many market players avoideded mamaking trades before the pmi data comes out on friday. the s&p/asx 200 climbed 1.4%. some benchmarks retreated from the gains made yesterday. those came after the u.s. fed chair's dovish remarks on rate hikes. singapore fell more than 1%. hong kong's hang seng index edged lowered. investors sold financial sector shares following weak earnings from some major mainland banks. >>> japanese government officials are tearing up a key tourism market and setting up a bigger one. they are doubling their goal for the annual number of foreign visitors by 2020 to 40 million. more than 19.7 million travellers arrived in 2015 setting a record. government officia

mining and mitsui os k lines all falling and dragging down the index. earningsith the other as well. petro china falling 4.3%. 2015 profit, 5% gain. lower than estimated. the loss in resources overshadowed the revenue from financial services. debt they said that bad charges will be at least $75 million higher than previously forecast. manus: a great round of their from yvonne man in hong kong. reporter: two days after the islamic state attacks on interior,uropean ministers meet in the belgian capital to assess counterterrorism and airport security measures. the continue their search for perpetrators at the subway station of the 230 people -- 33 people dead and 200 others injured. face questions about last week's budgets. his testimony followed yesterday by boris johnson, a leading proponent. youviewers, we will bring george osborne's appearance before the treasury committee. +++ merge and a deal that will create the third largest bank in italy. banko populair will on shares in both banks. the ceo of -- after the firm's investment and troubled drugmaker,