Latest / Best of Business / Peter Lewis: Asia business correspondent discusses unemployment rates in China

Transcript

Peter Lewis: Asia business correspondent discusses unemployment rates in China · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks. It'd be
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Now as a business correspondents with us, Hello Peter, Hello Heather.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: You been on holiday?
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: I had a break because it's actually a bit too
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: busy to travel because you've got about eight hun eight
• 0:29
  Speaker 3: hundred million other people all doing it at the same time.
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: So it was nice to have the sort of the
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: eight days off, but I spent it mainly at home.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: So what is this Golden Week holiday?
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: Well, this year it's been much longer than normal. It
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: was an eight day holiday. It occurs always at the
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: beginning of the beginning of October for China's National Day,
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: which is the first of October, the anniversary of the
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: founding of the People's Republic of China. But this year
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: we also had the mid Autumn Festival as well, so
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: they sort of joined them together and made one big
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: eight day holiday. You get a huge amount of travel
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: going on. As I said, there's about eight hundred and
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: eighty million domestic trips were made during that week in total.
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: A lot of people go home back to their families,
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: but you also get a lot of travel around China,
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: places like Beijing and Shanghai very popular overseas. Japan and
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: South Korea very popular as well, so you get a
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: lot of overseas travel, and it's often seen as a
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: guide to the state of the economy because this is
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: the chance for people to really splash out and go
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: and spend money on travel, on movies, on restaurants, and
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: so on. But the trend this year hasn't been that
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: great as an indication of China's economy because although there's
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: been a record number of trips, the amount of money
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: spent on those trips has declined. People just don't seem
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: to have the animal spirits anymore. They're really looking for
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: budget deals, budget holidays. Hotels, although they may be completely full,
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: have had to slash their prices, so they're not making
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: the same sort of money as before. And this is
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: all part of the fact that there's really a couple
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: of things going on. One is the property market. It's
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: still a very big overhang on the Chinese economy. It's
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: been going down now for about four years. And also
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: there's a lot of unemployment, particularly youth unemployment. Nearly one
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: in five students people under twenty four are unemployed, so
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: it just doesn't really encourage people to go and splash
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: the cash.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: And now what do you know about this resort hotel
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: in Macau.
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: Oh, it's a great idea. Well, I tell you why
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: it is because this is a joint venture between IRAD
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: in Hong Kong. Now, in Hong Kong, IRAD is very
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: well known. They are the leading diagnostic group. So if
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: you need to go and have a scan of some
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: sort and X ray and MRI scan, CT scan, the
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: chances you will end up at IRAD. And they've opened
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: the world's first resort hospital inside the Studio City Complex
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: in Macaw. Now this is a huge, glitzy Hollywood theme
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: casino and entertainment resort. And the idea is that while
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: you're there, Macau has a lot of visitors thirty nine
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: million tourists each year. Some of them are going to
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: be quite health conscious and maybe want to stay a
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: bit longer and enjoy some medical services. And medical tourism
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: is absolutely booming in Asia. The Asian region accounts for
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: about seventy five percent of the global market. Last year,
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: it was about sixty billion dollars worth of revenues. That's
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: projected to double over the next few years. South Korea,
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: Singapore and Thailand very much dominate that space. But with
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: this captive number of people coming to Macau, the idea
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: is that Macau can try and you know, tap into
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: that sort of huge market for medical tourism. And why
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: not why not after you know, a heavy night at
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: the roulette table, go and have a full body scan
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: and a collagen boost afterwards.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: Why not why not combine two of your greatest luves.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: Now are we going to get over the fact that
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: the Japanese prime minister, the incoming one, is a punk rocker.
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: Well, there's two things that really stand out. If you're
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: a foreigner, you really only know two things about Takiji.
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: One is that she was a former drummer in a
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: heavy metal band when she's a student. And the other
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: thing is she's a big fan of Margaret Thatcher. She
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: likes to style herself on her even to wearing blue suits,
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: and even some of her economic policies are sort of
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: a little bit reminiscent of Thatcherism. So she's also a protege.
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: The former prime minister Shinto Aarbe and he was Japan's
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: longest serving prime minister and since he went, we haven't
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: really had anyone who's been around for more than a year,
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: so the hope is that she will do better than that.
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: A lot of talk about her about the revival of abonomics.
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: If you remember, abonomics was all about trying to spend
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: a lot of money to boost the economy the Bank
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: of jap and cut interest rates into negative territory. I
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: think the last thing Japan needs right now is another
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: dose of abonomics. In anyway, there's no way the Bank
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: of Japan can cut interest rates, let alone into negative territory.
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: It's actually looking at putting them up at the moment.
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: But what it does signal is that Japan's going to
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: become see a lot more focus on trying to boost
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: growth through borrowing, through maybe some reforms of the Japanese economy,
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: like trying to get more women into the workforce, like
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: trying to reform the market to make it easier for
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: foreign skilled foreign workers to come in, all things that
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: it needs to do, but not habonomics. We're not going
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: to see the Bank of Japan start cutting interest rates. Interesting.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: Hey, thank you very much, Peter, I appreciate it. Look
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: after yourself, Peter Lewis and good luck in Macau. Peter Lewis,
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: Asia Business Corresponding
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: For more from news Talks, it'd be listen live on
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: or online and keep it shows with you wherever you
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio