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Hello, and welcome to World Business Report from the BBC World Service.
I'm Gideon Long, great to have you with us today.
And on this edition, Ukraine and the United States have now agreed a deal on minerals, although the US hasn't given President Zelensky any security guarantees.
Even in the framework agreement, I really wanted at least a sentence to appear, the guarantees of Ukraine's security.
Hong Kong unveils its annual budget as companies continue to leave the city for more business -friendly jurisdictions away from China's control.
This year Hong Kong is really focusing on trying to fix the deficit and trying to find basically every penny they can.
And we'll be talking oranges and lemons, South African oranges and lemons to be precise.
I'll be speaking to the head of the country's Citrus Fruit Association.
We're going to start the programme talking about BP, British Petroleum.
Five years ago, the company was generating headlines like this.
BP announced today that they're shifting their focus away from oil production.
Instead of focusing on oil, it's switching gears to renewable energy.
And here was how the firm marketed itself at the time.
Beyond darkness. Light.
Beyond Petroleum. BP.
Beyond Petroleum, the company set some of the most ambitious targets of any of the large oil companies to cut production of oil and gas by 40 % before 2030, while ramping up investment in renewable energy.
By 2023, it had lowered that target to 25%, and now it's scrapped it altogether.
Today, it said it would increase oil and gas spending to $10 billion a year, while cutting its annual investment in energy transition businesses by more than $5 billion.
Beyond Petroleum seems a long way off.
Here's BP's current CEO, Murray Orsinclos, speaking today.
In 2020, we made some bold strategic changes, accelerating into the energy transition while progressively reducing our hydrocarbon business.
We then saw COVID, the war in Ukraine, a recession, and the shift in attitudes of markets and governments have a fundamental impact on the energy system.
Our optimism for a fast transition was misplaced, and we went too far, too fast.
Well, Nick Butler spent 30 years at BP.
He was vice president for strategy and policy development.
These days, he's an energy economist at King's College London.
I think it's very difficult for any entity to do two different things at once.
And the low carbon business, where I think they have some good initiatives, is very different from the oil and gas business, where they have great skills and experience.
I think they are focusing on oil and gas.
I understand that the world needs oil and gas, and we don't want to be totally reliant on Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states.
But I think they should have taken the low -carbon business that they have, spun it off, found other owners to work with them on it.
I thought of it in the past as a daughter company that could be created.
But if it were split in two, how would that solve the problem of the impact of the environment of production of fossil fuels?
because the oil and gas company would still be drilling for oil and gas.
And I think the challenge for the renewable sector as a whole now is to really invest and to make the alternative sources of energy that could be developed to make them available and to make them affordable.
And that's a big challenge.
I think it won't be done by BP or any single company on its own.
So following this announcement today, how do you see the future of BP?
I mean, there's been some talk of a possible takeover of the company.
I don't think anything that's said today is going to stop that speculation and pressure.
You spent 30 years at BP, including at the time when it was starting its transition away from oil and gas.
It came up with this policy of cutting oil and gas production by 40 percent by 2030.
Looking back now, do you think that target was overambitious?
I think they were wrong to think that they could do it all in one company.
I was involved in the original shift to Beyond Petroleum, and I think we were wrong too.
We believed that you could do both oil and gas and low carbon in one entity, and that is actually too difficult.
I believe now the fact that they haven't broken it up, which I would think they should do strategically, is going to lead to continued speculation about the future of the business.
Because I guess the harsh reality that we're facing now is that shareholders are always going to push back against any policy that affects their bottom line, even if it's good for the environment.
That's not quite true.
I think there are quite a lot of shareholders now who want to look at companies investing in the energy transition because that transition is coming.
It's going to be a great global market if you get it right.
What they don't believe in is companies trying to do two things at once.
We're talking about BP today, but of course, other oil companies have made similar announcements.
They've also rode back on some of their commitments to the green transition, Shell and Equinor, for example.
It seems like the whole industry, not just BP, is slightly rowing back on its green commitments.
That is right. And I think what that means is that we now really need some big investors to come together and to create a great company in the low carbon industry.
China has the lead in so much of the low carbon business.
We shouldn't leave it all to them.
I think we should develop our own low carbon activities and do research on the next generation, which provides low carbon sources, which people around the world, even in much poorer countries than the UK, can afford.
Nick Butler there. I'm joined now by Colleen McHugh, investment consultant to Wealthify in the UK.
Colleen, Nick was talking there about the possible future of BP.
He feels as though it should be broken up.
There's also been some talk of a possible takeover of BP.
How do you see the future of the company?
Yeah, I mean, something needs to be done.
I think there's a lot of pressure on BP at the moment, certainly from shareholders, particularly from their activist investor, Elliott Management, who owns 95 % of BP.
And the reality is, is that, you know, with the lackluster performance, share price performance, and it has been very poor, I mean, it's pretty flat over the last five years.
And, you know, you compare that to perhaps Shell, that's up, you know, 60 % over that period, or even Exxon in the US, it's up 113%.
So to answer your question, definitely from a strategic perspective, I think there'll be hard, hard, hard decisions that possibly need to be made.
I mean, I noticed today that they do intend to generate 20 billion by 2027 through asset sales.
And that might even include its stake in the solar venture, its solar venture LightSource BP.
So one to watch for sure.
Well, Colleen, stay with us.
And we'll be coming back to you later in the programme.
But BP's announcement is not the only one today that could potentially have a big impact on the environment.
The European Commission has presented what it describes as a clean industrial act for the European Union, which will involve an extra $100 billion for EU -made clean manufacturing.
It also wants to relax the rules on corporate sustainability reporting, which some European businesses say are a drain on their time and money.
Wapke Hostera is the European Commissioner for climate net zero and clean growth just to be clear there's no question there is no question of turning on our backs on climate action but we know that at the same time we cannot do this without bringing business and industry much more closely on board and that is why
we are making a strong business case for investment in decarbonization and that is why we're drastically simplifying the regulatory environment so that businesses can actually focus on what they do best, growing and innovating.
I've been speaking to Annemee Turtlebaum, a member of the European Court of Auditors.
Europe is facing at this moment a trilemma.
We live in some challenging times because the European Commission tries to square the circle between the Green Deal that has been accepted and adopted in 2019 but of course also the impact on the industry keeping in mind that we don't want to be too dependent on countries outside Europe.
We made a whole series of reports on it going from 5G to batteries to hydrogen and also artificial intelligence where we looked into the facts and the figures of the European policy.
I think it's very good that the commission shows and that they recognise the problems that European industry is today facing to meet the Green Deal goals.
The European Commission tries to give an answer to it, but it remains to be seen whether they will meet the target and whether it will work.
Annamie Turtle -Balnair, a member of the European Court of Auditors.
You're listening to World Business Report from the BBC World Service.
Let's go to Hong Kong, where the city's budget has been announced.
Hong Kong's financial secretary Paul Chan said the government plans to cut 10 ,000 civil service jobs.
Katya Dimitrieva is Bloomberg's Asia economics correspondent in Hong Kong.
10 ,000 civil service jobs here is about a little more than 5 % of the entire government workforce right now, and that's over just three years, so a relatively small scale of time.
And this is some more kind of global context.
In the US right now, Elon Musk and the Department of Government efficiency or Doge is cutting basically 6 % from the Defense Department and a few other sectors.
So you can definitely get a sense of how big this will be.
And this was among a few other announcements that made it pretty clear that this year Hong Kong is really focusing on trying to fix the deficit and trying to find basically every penny they can.
And the fact that the city authorities have felt the need to cut 10 ,000 jobs over the next three years.
What does that tell us about the state of Hong Kong's economy?
The economy is doing okay, but definitely not as fast paced as it was.
And things are not back to where they were pre pandemic.
And that's really a function of how the economy worked before about one third of revenue used to come from land sales.
You know, the Hong Kong government is the largest landlord in the city.
And so they would sell off these tracts of land and make these premiums that would then go into funding jobs and transportation for structure, all that good stuff people like.
But, you know, unfortunately, after COVID, and after these lockdowns that the government imposed, that were much longer and much more harsh than other places, and the democracy protests and the crackdown on them, it's caused a lot of people to leave the city.
And the property market has not rebounded.
There's also just the Chinese economy is slowing.
And so much of the growth here depends on tourism summon businesses from China.
There's also President Donald Trump's tariffs that are going to be impacting trade flows.
And of course, Hong Kong at the end of the day is still a port city.
And there's a lot of shipments and reshipments that come through here.
So it's not looking good.
You mentioned the property market there, and there's also been a reduction in stamp duty announced.
What's the idea there?
So previously, when you were buying a low cost home, and for listeners in Hong Kong, a low cost home is half a million US dollars.
So you'd pay a stamp duty of as much as 1 .5 % of the value.
And that's been brought down as of, you know, this announcement today to 100 Hong Kong dollars are about 12 bucks.
So really big difference.
It'll affect about 15, 1 to 5 % of transactions.
And that's just because Hong Kong is the most expensive property market in the world.
And so there's sort of not that many properties on the market that are of that value, but it'll certainly help at least on the margins for the sector that's been completely beaten down.
And have you seen big companies moving out of Hong Kong and moving to other places like Singapore because of the protests over the last few years and the situation with the economy?
A lot of companies have been moving from Hong Kong and relocating staff from Hong Kong to Singapore in recent years.
I mean, whether it's COVID or the protests or just people not wanting to move here anymore, there have been quite a few companies that have made that shift.
but they're also moving to other cities too you know they're moving to Dubai for example I mean it's not just about taxes it's also about the growth in that particular economy and where they want to do business and Katia I believe we need to talk about basketball and Hong Kong tell me why basketball
in Hong Kong who would have thought so the government is currently discussing legalizing basketball sports betting in the city.
Right now you can bet on horses and there's casinos in Macau, but you cannot bet within Hong Kong outside of those parameters.
The idea is to take that money that would normally be illegal, it's about 70 to 90 billion Hong Kong dollars last year, that's according to the Jockey Association, and taking that and basically legalizing it so that the government could make some money.
So that's currently under discussion.
Katya Dimitrieva in Hong Kong there.
Well, Colleen McHugh from Wealthify is still with us.
Colleen, basketball, gambling in Hong Kong.
But it does seem to have lost its shine a little bit as a centre for financial activity, doesn't it?
I mean, I remember when I was younger that the Hang Seng Index was a real stock market index to be aware of.
And it doesn't seem to be the case anymore.
Yeah, listen, well, I think there's definitely some truth to that notion that it's losing its shine as you know the one of the premier financial centers and particularly after sort of that three years of COVID isolation it's just struggling to woo back losses.
I mean some of the data that I looked at Gideon referred to the fact that the number of global companies with regional headquarters in Hong Kong had fallen over 8 % since 2019 but even worse the number of staff employed by such firms had actually dropped around 30 % in the same period.
But look there's two sides to it, right?
Obviously, you have the challenges from the political influence from mainland China, but you also, I suspect, have perhaps the attractiveness of Singapore.
It's a stable political environment.
It's got a decent regulatory framework, great location.
So it might be an appealing alternative for businesses just seeking to establish or indeed expand their presence in Asia.
And Colleen, I guess your eyes on the markets today are looking at NVIDIA.
It's going to announce its results later today, later on Wednesday.
What are you expecting from those results?
Yes, a lot of focus, a lot of focus on NVIDIA.
So this is, you know, the poster child of the AI craze.
It's got 3 trillion market capitalization, making up over 4 % of the S &P 500 index.
So really, this is the barometer of this entire US exceptionalism trade.
So it's began second guessing U .S.
tech giants after the DeepSeq release, the LLM release, and kind of rattled the industry with its much cheaper AI technology, but yet seemingly as capable as a lot of these U .S.
leaders. So a little bit of pressure on the video today.
Obviously, it lost about 600 billion after that DeepSeq announcement, but it did reclaim some of it.
But listen, there's a lot riding on this chip maker today to deliver results that could, I guess placate investors, placate investors, who are questioning, you know, the heavy spending in AI.
Well, we'll see what Invidia says later.
Colleen, thanks very much for joining us here on World Business Report.
Now, we've been covering this story for several days now here on the programme.
There's been a lot of confusion surrounding it, but it has been confirmed that Ukraine and the United States have agreed a deal that would give the US access to Ukraine's mineral riches.
Ukraine's President Vladimir Zelensky is expected to sign it at the White House on Friday although he said it is preliminary a jointly owned fund will be set up for the reconstruction of Ukraine and will be fed by profits from the country's minerals oil and gas speaking in Kyiv President Zelensky said
it's important that Ukraine's interests come first I really asked for at least an understanding that we see this as part of future security guarantees Therefore, even in the framework agreement, I really wanted at least a sentence to appear, the guarantees of Ukraine's security.
And the government officials briefed me, it has appeared.
Not everyone is 100 % convinced by the deal.
Hannah Hopka is a former member of the Ukrainian Parliament.
Without seeing these commitments and deliverables, I think this is a wrong approach.
our president meets Trump this Friday, I hope President Trump will mention security guarantees.
So America needs to stand for good with Ukraine, with Europe, and this deal, it's a framework agreement.
But we hope this is a step towards real security guarantees to end the war.
The The new war never starts again.
I've been speaking to Elena Lesniak, the deputy CEO of Velter Holding, a titanium mining company.
It's a little bit controversial and difficult to say right now, because what we have seen until now in terms of documents is just a draft.
What the governments of two countries are going to sign in the nearest time is the Memorandum of Understanding.
and what we could see were some initial drafts while we haven't seen the final version yet.
The data is in details.
There, I believe, will be a lot of discussions further on between the governments of two countries in formatting the agreement.
But in general, as business, as private business, we like a lot the idea and we support the general idea of this agreement, which is about the investment fund creation for the reconstruction of Ukraine that will at the same time imply the development of the natural resource base of the country.
Your company is a titanium mining company.
Is titanium one of the minerals that the US wants and needs?
Titanium is one of the critical minerals which is stated in the Critical Minerals Act in the United States, in the European Union, and in China as well.
More than 75 % of the global titanium metal is supplied by Russia and China.
Titanium is used in such critical industries as defense and aerospace.
Helicopters, tanks, missiles, rockets, aircrafts, everything needs titanium.
And the more independent could the United States be from Russia and from China on this critical material, the better and the safer.
And I believe the more it will feel in the national security policy of the country.
And how much titanium does Ukraine potentially have?
How much could it supply to the United States?
If we speak about the metal titanium, the plant which produced metal titanium in Ukraine is situated in Zaporizhia, which is war region at the moment.
And because of the Russian rockets attacks is not into production.
So what Ukrainian is producing now is a titanium feedstock.
And I can say that our company is producing about 1 .5 % of global titanium feedstock.
But overall, you see this as a good thing, this deal.
You don't see it as unfair exploitation of Ukraine's mineral resources.
Again, I would say that the details of the agreement are not clear yet, and we hope to see them.
But the general idea, the way it sounds, it will give Ukraine the opportunity to use the resources for its own development and to provide United States with critical minerals.
So it looks like it could be great win -win deal.
Olena Lezniak there, the deputy CEO of Velta Holding, a titanium mining company in Ukraine.
We're going to go to Somalia, where people living with disabilities have faced discrimination, isolation and limited access to basic human rights for years.
11 % of the country's adult population lives with a disability and they've struggled to find jobs, access education and participate in politics.
However, a historic new law, the National Disability Protection Law, promises to change that by ensuring legal recognition and greater inclusion.
But activists say the real challenge now lies in implementation.
Our reporter, Fardowsi Hanshi, has just returned from Mogadishu and filed the following report.
I am at a training session focusing on gender -based violence against persons with disabilities.
One of the attendees is Fatima.
We have changed her name and voice to protect her identity.
She was just seven years old when a routine injection went terribly wrong, leaving her paralyzed from the west down.
That moment, she sees, marked the start of a lifetime of struggle.
When I got married, we moved in with my husband's family.
His mother used to come to our room every night and take her son to another room, saying that I would transform my disability to him.
They forced us to divorce.
When I gave birth to his child, they came to check whether the child was disabled like me.
In Somalia, more than 1 in 10 adults live with a disability, with the majority being women.
The women I spoke to described feeling invisible in a society where deep -rooted cultural beliefs and misconceptions leave them vulnerable to stigma and gender -based violence.
Firdausa Khalif from the Bright Somali Foundation has been working to change that.
The experience in the violence, they have very small access to escape the situation due to lack of awareness or lack of education or not being able to physically remove themselves from the situation.
For decades, disabled people in Somalia have fought for legal recognition One of the loudest voices has been Mohamed Didier, a visually impaired activist leading the Somali Disability Empowerment Network.
Mohamed has spent years campaigning for the National Disability Protection Act, which was finally signed into law in December 2024 by President Hassan Sheikh.
I don't think that I'm included in my community.
I have not respected my dignity.
It will give us an opportunity to overcome the challenges, specifically to have political representation, to reduce unemployment.
One of the law's key provisions, Article 7, guarantees political representation for persons with disabilities.
It also mandates that at least 5 % of jobs in both government institutions and private companies be reserved for disabled people.
Mohammed Abdul -Jama is the chairman of the National Disability Agency.
I think Somalia's culture is one of the discriminatory cultures in the world.
So when it comes to implementing such a law, it's not easy.
You said your organisation is responsible for the implementation process.
How are you ensuring people with disabilities in Somalia that it's going to be, and as soon as possible, it will be implemented?
Yes. Yes, there are three articles in the law that have more urgency.
And the first one is the political representation of persons with disabilities.
They have an election next year.
So in order for people with disabilities to participate in that election, this article must be implemented immediately.
Activists like Mohamed know that passing the law was just the first step.
Changing mindsets, breaking down stigma and ensuring real inclusion will take time.
But now with the law on their side, they believe they have a fighting chance.
Fardossa Hanshi there, reporting from Mogadishu.
And a reminder, as we heard a little earlier, news that's been evolving during the day, it's been confirmed that Ukraine and the United States have now agreed a deal that would give America access to Ukraine's mineral riches.
Vladimir Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, is expected to sign it with Donald Trump at the White House on Friday.
Speaking to reporters in Kyiv a little earlier, Mr Zelensky was asked for more details about his upcoming meeting with the US president.
A lot of things depend on the decision of President Trump because also European partners will look at this.
And this is a very important moment.
And what we can have today with the United States and what will be tomorrow.
and really what common plan we can prepare for finishing this war.
And that's just about it from World Business Report.
Thanks very much for listening from me and all the team.
