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This is Andrew Peach with World Business Report.
Good to have your company.
Today, pharmaceuticals caught between the US and China.
We'll look at the sector's latest investment plans.
At a collapsed gold mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo, people are using their hands and basic tools to try to reach victims who are trapped underground.
And we told you last week that Indonesia was one of only four countries to seal a deal with the US on tariffs.
Today, we'll meet the man who did it.
I will open to any investment because investment has no religion.
So every investment is good.
We'll start, though, with the pharmaceutical sector where the multinational drug manufacturer AstraZeneca has announced plans to invest $50 billion in the United States by the end of the decade.
The Anglo -Swedish firm said the proposals included its biggest single manufacturing investment at a site in Virginia.
In recent months, other pharma companies have announced big spending plans in the US as Donald Trump threatens the sector with steep tariffs.
Mark Samuels is the chief executive of Medicines UK, representing British manufacturers.
He's been talking to my colleague, Leanna Byrne.
Well, decisions of this scale are never made overnight, and AstraZeneca had evidently prioritised the US even before the Trump administration came into power.
America accounts for almost half the company's revenues, so it was always going to be a significant investment location.
And but for the UK, that's probably not a good thing, is it?
Well, any loss of manufacturing, and this is a very large manufacturing investment, is unhelpful to the UK.
You know, we're fantastic at doing research in the UK, but we need manufacturing to translate that research and development into growth into GDP.
It's manufacturing products and services that provides the country with GDP.
So it is disappointing to lose that.
That said, the UK government has announced its life sciences sector plan and that includes a fund to support British manufacturing.
What about for the US?
AstraZeneca is not the only pharma giant that has made this type of investment.
Are we going to see a trend going forward?
Most of the big pharmaceutical companies make around half their profits in the US so it's no surprise that that's going to be a prime if not the prime country to invest in.
Now many US drug makers are also setting up deals with Chinese biotechs attracted by lower prices Evan Seegerman is Managing Director of BMO Capital Markets, covering biotechnology and pharmaceuticals.
He's live with us from New York.
Evan, thank you for being with us.
Donald Trump is obviously aiming to shift pharma to the US.
So does all this mean it's working?
I think he is succeeding.
And as your prior guest had indicated, most of the profits for these companies are in the United States.
And they have significant manufacturing and R &D here.
I think, you know, when you look at China, for example, there's ample opportunity for partnership.
But at the end of the day, a lot of the research and development and manufacturing will likely occur stateside.
Will what's happening with the investment we're hearing about from AstraZeneca and others be enough to change his plans when it comes to tariffs?
I think so. And I think the high tariffs that he's proposing are negotiation tactics, as you had mentioned.
You know, I don't expect that he's going to put a 200 percent tariff on pharmaceuticals.
I think he wants to shift in manufacturing and operations more over here and bring over critical components of the pharmaceutical supply chain to the United States.
One of the things that the administration is doing is looking at the Section 232 investigations to ensure that critical supply chains for pharmaceuticals across the spectrum are located domestically.
now while that's going on the pharma industry also seems very attracted by china perhaps because of technology maybe because just because of price and efficiency just give me a bit more on what's going on there most definitely there is a very active on biotech scene um you know there is it may not be assets for example but china the chinese biotech sector does have a lot of innovative medicines that could bring a lot of value to the U .S. firms. I think the question is how do you get those assets to the United States, probably need to partner with a Chinese company, and how is the IP protected,
for example? There's also a question of data, translating data from a Chinese population to a Western population.
You know, we've seen that in cancer trials where it doesn't necessarily translate, you know, apples to apples, but it's most definitely an area of innovation and, you know, promise because because there is such a wide variety of assets available.
Are the regulations the same?
Are the standards the same?
I think China is definitely trying to get their regulations and standards similar to what we see in the United States and Europe and the UK.
But with that said, a pharma company like Merck, for example, is going to look at a Chinese partner going to diligence the asset.
Then they'll bring it over here and have to run the same level of trials in a Western population for ultimate approval in the United States, India, Europe.
OK. And looking at pharmaceuticals more broadly, Evan, where are the big areas for growth?
I mean, weight loss, jabs, an obvious example.
But for sure. What are other areas that perhaps aren't so well publicized that we should be aware of?
I think there's a lot of opportunity in inflammation and immunology.
We know Abby, for example, is a leader in this space, but even Lilly has invested significantly there.
We're talking about diseases like psoriasis.
There's a lot of assets there, but more serious diseases like lupus.
There's really a high unmet need.
So that's an area where I'm focused.
I'd also point to neuroscience.
You have Lilly and Biogen investing heavily in their Alzheimer's franchises, and dementia is still a major problem in many parts of the world.
And what about artificial intelligence?
How does that play in?
It's a great question.
I think AI can be very helpful for the biopharma sector.
It's not going to be chat, GPT, make me a drug, but it's going to help optimize a lot of the processes from, you know, screening molecules to ensuring that clinical trials are run efficiently to scrubbing data and even helping companies respond to regulatory authorities by looking at their whole data set and coming up with answers.
So it shrinks something down into a few hours that could have taken weeks.
All right, Evan, thank you very much indeed for that.
Evan Siegerman from BMO Capital Markets.
Live now to Fiona Sincotta, Senior Markets Analyst at Citi Index. Let's go back to where we started, Fiona, and the big giants like AstraZeneca, how are they doing?
Well, so, I mean, if we just look at the performance today, the news has been well received about the moving of the investment in the U .S. It's trading up around 1 .2%.
But if we sort of broaden that out to across the year, AstraZeneca's down around 3 % year to date, so really underperforming the FTSE, where it's listed the FTSE's up 9 % year to date.
And then Pfizer, for example, another big player in the industry, that's down 8 % year to date.
So, you know, the sector's struggling amid the uncertainty surrounding tariffs and how that might play out and the impact that it could have on revenue and earnings.
Right. So even though Evan's saying, you know, what they're probably doing enough to please Donald Trump, the tariffs will probably never happen, because nothing can be certain, and the markets hate that.
That's right. And particularly this sector, it does feel like the pharma sector is very much under the spotlight, as far as Trump is concerned.
And that just feels like there's a lack of uncertainty, sorry, there's more uncertainty on that sector than perhaps on other sectors.
All right, Fiona, stay with us more in a moment or two.
First of all, to Indonesia, ranking as one of the top 25 trade partners of the US, sending about About $28 billion of goods there last year, including things like clothing, footwear and palm oil.
And now just one of four countries with a deal with the US over tariffs, negotiating 19 % tariffs on goods entering the US.
No tariffs at all on American products going to Indonesia.
Our business reporter in Singapore, Sorenjana Tiwari, has been talking to the government minister who led the negotiation for Indonesia.
Yeah, well, I've been speaking to Arlango Hartartu.
Hartarto. He's Indonesia's chief economy minister and was leading on those trade negotiations with the US.
And I asked him several times about the details of the deal.
And it sounds like this deal hasn't actually been signed.
And it's not clear when it will.
He told me it was a one to one agreement between President Trump and the president of Indonesia, President Prabowo.
Now, Now, Prabowo has already said that reaching that agreement with President Trump was an extraordinary struggle.
And I also asked the minister what Indonesia took to the negotiating table.
Of course, Indonesia has got nickel resources.
It's got a lot of palm oil that the U .S. does import.
And it sounds like there will be some copper investment from U .S. firms. But aside from that, these Indonesian businesses and exporters will still face a 19 % tariff, which is quite high for small and medium -sized businesses.
But the minister told me that it's lower than other places in the world and it will allow businesses from Indonesia to remain competitive.
For this phase, I think we agreed on the 19 % tariff.
So if you compare with current tariff that is implemented in the market, which is 10%, so you just add additional 9%.
I think our competitiveness in compared with others, of course, this is another theory of relativism.
So our tariff is relatively lower than any other countries within the region.
Every nation in the world is trying to negotiate a deal with the US.
Is there any concern that these deals are being rushed through and things like environmental and industrial protections are not being maintained?
We are not worried because we have been discussing this for so many years and we have been entering the free trade with many countries, with China, with Australia, with New Zealand.
Have they lowered their standards of environmental and industrial protections?
No, they are not lowering the standard. So then how have these deals taken so long to be negotiated and now they're suddenly going through?
Yeah, because I think now we have the agreement that the market should be open and multilateralism is very important.
So going forward, will you be more interested in US investment compared with Chinese investment?
And Soren Johanna, he sounds genuinely pleased with it.
But when we talked about this on the programme last week, the more common reaction was, well, this is a deal that anyone could have got.
Yes, it's not as bad as it might have been.
There was the threat of 32 % tariffs.
tarifs he's got 19.
That's still a great increase on 10 % at the moment and in the other direction there are no tariffs at all.
That's right and that's why I was really keen to try and find out what Indonesia's offered the US.
I mean we know from the deal from what's come out of the deal that the Indonesians have offered to buy things like Boeing planes.
I asked the minister if he's concerned about safety and he said no safety would be baked into the contracts but the really really interesting thing with this, and you heard it in the last one, is has it changed the way that businesses and economies trade with each other?
The minister there said that investment has no religion.
He'll be happy to take investment from China as he is to take investment from the U .S. And in amidst all this tariff chaos, we are seeing some sort of reshaping of the global economic order.
Indonesia, for example, has signed a deal with the EU that was 10 years in the making.
The EU raising a lot of those environmental and industrial protection concerns.
But what do you have here?
You have a deal with the EU and Indonesia.
So maybe all these countries around the world are looking for new markets given all the chaos that's ensued as a result of Trump's tariff policy.
The 1st of August is next week.
What do we expect to happen before then and on that date?
From what I'm hearing, not very much. I mean, the Trump administration seems to say it is a hard deadline.
It won't be extended anymore.
But in the same breath, officials are also saying that nothing will change.
We just need to get these deals done.
We're going to continue talking.
We're going to continue listening.
And even if things go beyond August 1st, we'll still make those deals.
So there's a lot of uncertainty for economies.
And the main thing as well as businesses, especially in this region, You know, some of the world's most famous, most well -known electronics, the global supply chains for things like chips run through all the way through here.
And they're just not being able to plan because of the chaos as a result of Trump's tariff policy.
And, of course, we've also got the China element.
The deadline for China's tariffs to kick in is August 12th.
And we're not sure what happens then either.
And that was Sorinjana Tiwari with me from Singapore.
This is World Business Report with Andrew Peach here on the BBC World Service.
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At a collapsed gold mine in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, people are using their hands and basic tools to try to reach victims trapped underground.
There are reports of around 12 bodies being recovered.
It's unclear how many miners are still missing.
Could be in the hundreds.
Several shafts at the Lemera gold mine caved in on Sunday.
Now, this is an area controlled by Rwandan -backed M23 rebels.
A report by UN experts back in December found the group makes hundreds of thousands of dollars a month by taxing minerals which are sent to Rwanda, although that's denied both by the m23 group and the government in kegali we're going to go live now to roland kasinga mining expert in the drc with africa global business services roland thank you very much indeed for joining us what's the latest from this rescue effort thank you very much uh so we have been informed that like on the 20th of july at least 10 uh 10 to 20 lifeless bodies have been recovered from the bend of the rubble following a devastating
landslide that struck the Lumera artisanal mining site on Sunday, July 20.
The incident occurred in Lui territory, which is the biggest artisanal gold mine site located in Kabari territory in the South Kew province.
So according to our sources, a series of cascading collapse buried at least a dozen of mining shafts primarily used for gold extraction and other metals precious metals so the rescue operations remain underway but our people the people that were on the ground when the accident occurred accounts suggest maybe the eyewitness accounts suggest the death toll could be significantly higher as several miners are still under accounted for and under their ground.
So while the precise cause of the disaster is still under investigation, so the combination of heavy rainfall, unstable geological conditions and unsafe artisan mining practice could be the reason.
And just give me a bit more on when the mining is is underway, where do these gold deposits and metals end up?
What's the normal run of the operation there?
Where's this stuff going?
So, well, I mean, when we start, remember that the Ministry of Mines of the DRC in the politics of de -formalisation of ASM, the artisanal mining activity operations in the DRC.
So we created, the government of the DRC created a branch of the Ministry of Mines known as CIMAPI, which was responsible for supporting artisanal miners by providing technical guidance and promoting health and safety standards.
So it's not this branch and this agency is no longer present in many areas since the arrival of the M23 rebel groups in the north and south Kivu province.
So these regions have seen a significant increase of artisanal mining activity actually supervised and monitored by the rebel groups of M23, particularly for gold and treaties minerals such as coltan and cassiterite tin.
So currently, the artisanal mining is being carried out without regulation or safety standard under the watch of rebel groups.
So this uncontrolled activity has led to numerous accidents and frequent landslides at the mining site.
I understand. Roland, thank you.
That's Roland Kersinger from Africa Global Business Services.
So lack of regulation also, as I was saying, doubts about where the minerals then end up when this mining is underway, something we'll keep you in touch with here on the BBC World Service.
Fiona Sincotta is still with me, senior market analyst at Citi Index. Let's talk about General Motors, not doing so well.
No, not at all. The share price is down around 7 % today as investors digest their results, which have been hit by US tariff costs, even as is sales of its electric vehicles more than doubled.
So there was a little bit of positivity, But basically profits fell 32 percent to 3 billion and revenue was down around 1 .8 percent.
And this is a company that's warned of tariff exposure of around 4 to 5 billion US dollars.
So that's a big hit that we'll be looking at over the not so distant term, in fact.
OK, from cars to music and Universal Music Group who have Taylor Swift, they have Drake, they have Lady Gaga.
What's going on with the company, though?
Yeah. So this is a company that's based in the Netherlands and it's actually filed for a confidential registration with the U .S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
So to go public in the U .S. Now, the actual details of this are still not clear how many shares or what price, but it's actually part of a deal with hedge fund Pershing Square, Square, which is a hedge fund that they have around $500 million worth of the stock, which it would need to sell if there was this listing in the US.
So there was a bit of a deal between this hedge fund and Universal Music.
So if this does go ahead, Pershing Square are a large shareholder.
They have around $3 .3 billion worth of shares in Universal Music.
So they would would be selling some of those as part of a deal if they did go public in the U .S. There's a couple of big companies to focus on today.
What's the market doing in more general terms?
Going well? Well, broadly speaking, I mean, we are seeing that, for example, the U .S. is down a little bit today.
Europe is down a little bit today.
But these stocks, the U .S. is trading very close to record highs, which it reached last week, which is quite interesting given the uncertainty that there is still surrounding the Trump's tariffs and you know the fact that we're so close to that August 1st deadline so I mean I think this is we've got US earnings season which has started so far it's been a little bit more optimistic than we're expecting we've obviously got US dollar weakness which is also beneficial for US stocks and I think just this focus is moving a little bit more to the AI narrative ahead of earnings from Alphabet that's Google
parent this week as the stocks market seems to be a little bit bit desensitized to to trump's um tariffs at the moment until august the 1st and then we'll wait and see what happens then volatility yeah i feel like we should mark the most important business story today which is confirmation from coca -cola that it is going to change to cane sugar for the u .s version of its drink something donald trump has been pushing for everybody trying to keep in with him fiona thank you very much indeed now whether you've been to bangkok if you've been to bangkok or other thai cities you'll be familiar with the traditional
three -wheel tuk -tuks which would have taken you from a to b if you could negotiate a fare with the driver now ride hailing apps mean you can summon a car to wherever you happen to be from your smartphone which leaves driver ratings and user reviews and that means tuk -tuks and taxis are in decline i've been talking about this to dr summit on kitty core who's research director for transportation policy at at the Thai Development Research Institute.
We limit the number of tuk -tuk for quite some time now.
So actually the tuk -tuk is just over around 20 ,000 and still decreasing because we are not allowed to keep more number of the tuk -tuk to be increased in Bangkok.
Compared to the taxi, a taxi we have probably before COVID, we have around 100 ,000 in Bangkok.
Maybe at the peak is around 130 ,000.
And at the moment, after the COVID, the number of taxis are decreasing to be around 20 ,000.
Wow. So actually, it's quite a reduction in both types of getting around.
Are people just more comfortable using their mobile phone and using an app to get a taxi to come these days than to try to hail down a taxi or a tuk -tuk in the street?
Actually, after the COVID -19, people are quite used to have a mobile phone, ordering food and also ordering the light healing services.
services so people are now very much familiar with using the mobile phone calling the car to pick them up.
The light healing apps are maybe more than 50 % of the taxi passenger at the moment.
And what about the service you get from a car that comes to pick you up when you summon it on your mobile phone?
Does it tend to be a good experience?
I think we did a small survey on the passenger experience.
The passenger tend to prefer the light healing application to have have better service than the state -held taxi at the moment.
And is that because there are more rules governing it or more competition or what?
I think it's about competition as well as the rule that governs the taxi service at the moment.
And because of the taxi service at the moment, we have some price regulation on the meter price and the meter price has not yet been increased for quite some years so that the service credit is now decreasing.
where as the light -healing application, they can set the price.
They have some limitation, but the price is a bit higher than taxi meter and the higher price tend to come with higher quality.
So that's why the taxi service are not really in the place that they can increase their service quality due to the price constraint.
And do people feel a bit sad that the tuk -tuks are in decline, that there are many fewer than they used to be?
Because it's such an important part of how people have got around Bangkok for such a long time.
Yeah, but again, because of the thing, the tuk -tuk itself seems to be used for the not very long distance.
But due to the expanding of the Bangkok area, the tuk -tuk are not be able to give a service for many part of the towing.
So the taxi itself seem to be more suitable for longer distance.
It sounds like the biggest story is that fewer journeys would be made at all if there's been such a radical reduction, not only in tuk -tuks, but actually also in taxis.
Yes, partly because during the past couple of years the maritime city in Bangkok has been improving.
We have new metal lines open so that people are using a little less of the taxi or tuk -tuk.
I have family who live in Bangkok and I think they would say the chaos, the vibrancy of the city was part of its charm, part of the enjoyment of being there.
It sounds a bit like some of that's being drained away.
Depends on the part of Bangkok because Bangkok is very large.
I think for a certain area, the tuk -tuk cars seem to be still quite popular, especially in the inner area.
But then for the outer Bangkok where people are living and travelling, some of that part that are changing due to the infrastructure and also the use of the public transport.
So some of the famous police persons, they have some tuk -tuk provider boats for that service still.
That's Dr Sumit Angkitikor, Research Director for Transportation Policy at the Thailand Development Research. Institute speaking to me.
A couple of other things we spotted today.
The U .S. Treasury Secretary Scott Besson seeming to speak up for the chair of the Fed, Jerome Powell, or at least saying he doesn't need to resign after calling for a review of the Fed.
And Sweden is going to host trade talks between the U .S. and China next week, the Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Christasson said in a post on social media.
You can read more about today's global business stories online Online at bbc .com slash news, bbc .com slash news, our web address.
But for me, Andrew Peach, and the team here on World Business Report, thanks for listening to the programme.
