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TikTok dodges the chop after it signed a US deal.
It's World Business Express from the BBC World Service.
I'm Leanna Byrne.
Japan's central bank has raised interest rates and Ukraine gets an EU funding lifeline.
So the clock was ticking for American TikTokers, but it looks like a deal has been struck.
By dance.
The Chinese owners of TikTok have signed a deal to sell the company's US assets to a joint venture led by American investors.
The move should enable TikTok to avoid a US government ban over its Chinese ownership.
So who's benefiting?
Is it a deal or no deal?
Emily Baker-White is a tech reporter and former lawyer.
She's also the author of Every Screen on the Planet, The War Over TikTok.
The US government was worried about two things.
They were worried that through ByteDance, the Chinese government might either gain access to private user data or somehow influence the messages that Americans were seeing on TikTok.
And this deal will give control over that user data, at least going forward.
And control over the sort of mix of content, the recommendations system to US investors.
Now, ByteDance will continue to own the recommendations algorithm and license it to those investors.
But at least in theory, those investors will have sort of oversight over that and can control what people see on the platforms.
One thing that is very important to mention, isn't it is that that algorithm is so important to the whole deal?
Under Chinese law, the algorithm is subject to export controls.
And so the Chinese government sort of said, we don't want to let this go.
We don't want to let ByteDance sell the algorithm.
And so the parties had to come up with something short of a sale that would still address the US national security concerns.
And so you think Beijing is going to be happy with all this?
The White House is saying they are.
They probably wouldn't have let ByteDance sign this agreement if they didn't want it to go forward.
But Beijing has been much more quiet than Washington DC, and so I think in the coming days we should all be watching carefully what they say about the deal.
That was tech reporter Emily Baker-White.
So this deal may keep TikTok alive in the US, but after a year of uncertainty it's already changed the creator economy.
Jack Nader, he's a full-time content creator based in Chicago with over 750,000 followers on TikTok.
Although it is nice to have a weight off my shoulders about the future of my employment and the future of thousands of other creators' and small businesses' livelihoods, which I feel have been used as a political bargaining chip these past few months, I do have mixed feelings about this agreement.
I feel that the way TikTok was operating these past few years was perfect.
I mean, clearly it's like the most popular social media app in the world.
I don't believe our data was ever at any risk in the first place.
And truly I feel like with the current administration in the United States, I'm even more concerned about censorship now.
With me now, Randeep Samal, fund manager at M&G Investments.
Randeep, on the back of this, Oracle stocks, they've been soaring.
And that's presumably because Oracle is going to hold over 80% of TikTok US.
They are indeed.
This gives Oracle a fantastic strategic growth asset.
TikTok US has 170 million users, and that means 17 million daily uploads that need to be stored somewhere.
And Oracle's been investing hugely in its crowd capacity and this will consume that and generate a huge amount of revenue and hence the stock's up 7 today.
Absolutely.
All right, Randeep.
We're going to go to Japan now.
Japan's central bank has raised its main interest rate to the highest level in 30 years, as households grapple with rising living costs.
The decision comes as the country's new prime minister, Sanae Takeuchi, tries to cool inflation while still keeping government borrowing costs low.
The governor of the Bank of Japan, Keizuo Oida, explains why it's taken this decision.
First, regarding the 07 level for the first time in 30 years, I do not believe it carries any particular significance.
That is because, whilst 05 had effectively been the upper limit for some time in the past, inflation is now markedly higher compared with that period and the overall environment is very different.
Let's hear from economist Naomi Fink.
She's chief global strategist at Amuva Asset Management.
That's a major Japanese investment company and one of Asia's largest asset managers.
We shouldn't really expect them to hike rates very quickly.
I think they're going to wait and see, learn by doing, watch the data, see how the economy responds.
But there are more hikes coming, most likely.
What responses do you think that they want to see in the economy?
They want to see the relationship between wages and prices stay intact.
So wage rises, which we anticipate are going to be forthcoming continuing, and then the ability to absorb price rises.
And these are all very slow and steady rises.
Tell us about Japan's economy right now and how big of a problem is inflation?
Japan has been experiencing above target inflation.
So the Bank of Japan's target is 2 and core inflation has been above that for over three years now.
So that's been a bit of a shock for households, even though inflation isn't going through the roof.
It's new for households, and they are not used to dealing with positive price rises.
Economist Naomi Fink there.
Randeep, this has given the yen a bump, hasn't it?
It has.
I mean, this is an economy that has deflation, had deflation for decades now.
And although 075 interest rate might seem low to the rest of the world, it's uncharted territory for Japan.
And the yen, obviously, as the interest rates rise, you earn more interest.
It has been a bit stronger.
But I think the government are trying to weigh that down and temper it and behave as if everything is still normal.
All right.
Randeep Somal, fund manager at M&G Investments.
Always a pleasure.
And thank you so much for joining us.
The Danish shipping giant Maersk says that for the first time in nearly two years, one of its ships has gone through the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb Strait.
The company had to divert vessels away from the Red Sea route in January 2024 after Yemen's Houthi militants attacked ships in this area in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
There are currently no plans for another sailing on that route.
Meanwhile, Ukraine's President Vladimir Zelensky says a new EU financing deal will strengthen the country's defence against Russia.
EU leaders have agreed to an interest-free loan worth just over 105 billion, or €90 billion, which will cover Ukraine's military and budget needs for the next two years.
The plan to use frozen Russian assets has been shelved for now.
Here's Sasha Fax from Denmark's Parliament Defence Committee.
There's been a lot of reluctancy, especially from Belgium, because most of these assets, the frozen assets, are actually in Belgium.
And it's, from my perspective, a very understandable fear.
In Denmark we do have a Ukrainian weapon factory planned and it's a minor thing compared to the frozen assets, but there are also speculations about retaliations in Denmark.
And we have a number of countries that are reluctant to support Ukraine.
So what they came up with was finding...
90 billion euros and that will be actually taken directly from the European finances as a loan to Ukraine, which should not be paid back till after there has been a trial around war reparation in terms of Russia, and if Russia then is reluctant to pay back, then you could look at the frozen assets.
So they have kind of combined it, but pushed the discussion about the frozen assets till after there has been a decision on how to ask Russia to pay back.
That was Sasha Fax from Denmark's Parliament Defence Committee.
And finally, Chinese retailer Shein won't be banned in France after a court rejected the government's request to suspend its website.
It had caused uproar by selling sex dolls resembling children.
The court said a suspension would be disproportionate but did order strict age verification for all adult products.
And that's it from World Business Express with me, Leanna Byrne.
Please subscribe to get the latest from us.
Just search for World Business Express wherever you get your podcasts.
Thanks so much for listening.
Want to know how to become the richest person in the world?
Start with the latest episode of our podcast, Good Bad Billionaire.
We're telling the story of how Elon Musk amassed half a trillion dollars from his troubled childhood in South Africa to buying Twitter and launching rockets into space, with all the boardroom dramas along the way.
Find out how he did it on Good Bad Billionaire.
Listen wherever you get your BBC podcasts.
