sri lanka _ country is on. ritual nutso the ceo of sri lanka airlines. - country is on. eo of sri lanka airlines. that brings us to the end of the asia business report at this hour. thank you for staying with us, do stay with bbc news for the latest headlines and analysis. the latest way to improve safety for people partying in bath. the safe bus will be parked up every friday and saturday night outside bath abby. at the end of the bus we have this private area which is for people to come if they need their own private space. need private medical treatment. then we've got a kitchen. this is kind of like the kitchen area and we have everything in it you probably need if you wanted to keep warm and have a nice drink, tea coffee or anything else. under here we have sick bowls, emergency blankets, flip—flops, which i've been told by the night passengers are really popular. spare clothing and phone chargers. there will always be a paramedic and a security marshall and a team of volunteers for people who need first aid or need the paramedic and that support. pressure on emergen

we sit down with the head of sri lanka airlines is the state carrier looks to privatise to ease the burdenn colombo. there hello and welcome to asia business report. i'm karishma vaswani. our top story this morning, china has about a resolute response following a high level meeting between the taiwanese president tsai ing—wen and the us house speaker kevin mccarthy in california, in an early—morning statement, the ea rly—morning statement, the spokesperson early—morning statement, the spokesperson for the chinese ministry accused washington of colluding with taiwan, especially over the issue of arms sales, earlier mr mccarthy said washington must strengthen in economic cooperation with the island that china has claimed as its own. whether it is our deep — claimed as its own. whether it is our deep commercial- claimed as its own. whether it is our deep commercial ties, l is our deep commercial ties, strong people to people relationships, our shared values, our cooperation with the people of taiwan continue to expand through dialogue and exchange. mr to expand through dialogue and exchanae.

we sit down with the head of sri lanka airlines is the state carrier looks to privatise to ease the burdenn mccarthy in california,

sri lankan airlines is no exception, but it's facing some challenges, not least the crippling economic crisis in sri lankachard nuttall, chief executive at the carrier who told us what a change in ownership could mean for the airline. there's a lot of energy around privatising. the first thing that we need to do if we are going to privatise is restructure the old debts that are out there. in round numbers, we make $1 billion of revenue a year, we have $1 billion of debt, some of it local, some of it owed to creditors and we are paying 100 million on servicing it so if we can structure that debt, a large part of what we are paying in interest comes back and can be used to run the airline and it means an outside investor can come in and basically not pay for the sins of the past. i think the first lesson for me is don't ever go and be a ceo in covid. afterwards, you can come for the upswing and not deal with the difficulties. we have learned that we are really lousy at forecasting. everybody thought covid would last three weeks, then three months, then a year, then it was two years, and for some big markets

sri lankan airlines is no exception, but it's facing some challenges — not least the crippling economic crisis in sri lankaard nuttall, chief executive at the carrier who shared what a change of ownership could do for the airline. there is a lot of energy around privatising. the first thing we need to do if we are going to privatise is to have a restructure the old decks. we make $1 billion in round numbers of revenue a year, we have $1 billion in debt, some of it in dollars, some local, to different creditors and we are paying $100 million on servicing it. if we can structure that debt, a large part of what we're paying interest comes back and can be used to run the airline and it means outside investor can come in and basically cannot pay for the sins of the past. i think the sins of the past. i think the first lesson for me is don't ever going to be a ceo during covert. so do not deal with a difficult days. —— covid—19. we are really lousy at forecasting. we thought it was going to last, three months, yet, three years. historically into this business you plan for the year i had and have 10% growth, and