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Hello and welcome to World Business Report on the BBC World Service.
Will Bain with you today.
Great as always to have your company on the programme.
Coming up today, US President Donald Trump hosts the Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba for the first time as the two allies, wary of China's rise, work to boost business and security ties.
But given Japan is another country which runs a trade deficit with America, can the two stay on friendly economic terms?
We hear from one business owner who certainly hopes so.
In any case, if Donald Trump is going to impose a tariff against Japan, and if it's going to be a very high tariff, then I might refrain from looking into US market.
Also on the programme today, we'll be live at a major meeting of those looking to mine critical minerals in southern Africa and it's Super Bowl Sunday this weekend in the United States and that means a lot of people watching TV the challenge for all advertisers and for all brands in the world now is the battle
for attention and therefore you do have to go bigger better more original more unexpected than ever before if you want people to pay you any attention yeah we'll hear why the competition for our attention off the field of play will once again be as intense and perhaps even more expensive than the product
on the field in New Orleans.
All that to come on World Business Report, but let's start with the Japanese Prime Minister Shiguro Ishiba's trip to Washington, D .C.
for a long time, close military and economic ally.
But we've seen tensions in recent years on the economic front, most recently, of course, when one of Japan's biggest industries, Nippon Steel, was blocked by Mr.
Trump's predecessor, President Biden, from completing a takeover of U .S.
steel. Mr Ishpa told reporters of the importance of the trip he's on shortly before setting off for the US Capitol.
I'd like to confirm in my meeting with the president that Japan and the US will cooperate in the economic and security fields, that we will work together towards peace and developing freedom and openness in the Indo -Pacific region and beyond.
key for geopolitics then key too for japan's exporters with tech giants like sony and the world's biggest car maker toyota all calling the u .s one of their key markets and it's not just the giants of japanese industry who are watching this trip keenly kyoko nagana is the founder at sake export and sake
tasting events and tours in the japanese capital tokyo and she told our reporter Victoria Holland about the importance of the U .S.
market. I export sake to many different countries and I was thinking about exporting sake to the United States as well but there are many regulations in the United States and in any case if Donald Trump is going to impose a tariff against Japan and if it's going to be a very high tariff then I might refrain from looking
into the U .S. market.
As we know, the Japanese economy right now is a bit struggling.
And do you think Donald Trump can reach the deal with the Prime Minister?
We feel like Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba can be an icebreaker to bring over more business to Japan.
But we're kind of very worried about how the outcome would be because we heard that Donald Trump is going to impose some tariff to other countries as well.
We have always had a good relationship with the United States, but we're not sure what the outcome would be.
So we're looking into it right now.
Exporter Kyoko Nagano there speaking to our Victoria Holland.
Well, for a bit more, we spoke to Dr.
Sajiro Takashita, Professor of Management and Information at the University of Shizuoka.
And I asked him if there was a little lingering tension in the relationship between Japan and the United States?
I'd say a little lingering would be a very very mild way of putting it it's a very very big anxiety amongst the Japanese corporations and of course they're not going to express this out loud but obviously especially with the decision of the haltage of Nippon Steel's buyout on the US Steel clearly gives
them a sign that you know their foreign direct investment towards the United States should be on the freezer Japan had been the biggest contributor to the United States as far as FDI is concerned, but I can clearly see that people would be backing off.
Right. We've talked about this a little bit on the program before, Professor, but just remind people a little bit of the Nippon Steel case and why you think it's such a red flag to business leaders in Japan.
Basically, Nippon Steel was going to buy out the U .S.
Steel. And throughout this buyout, they were going to be the second largest producer in the world, which would be competing with the rising powers of the Chinese steelmakers.
But, unfortunately, they put a haltage because of emotions winning over rationale.
And many of the U .S.
delegates are basically saying that they would halt it for security reasons.
But that's totally absurd, because the real enemy is not the Japanese.
We're part of the Allies.
And if you're talking about the total hegemony war between the United States and China, Japan is obviously on the side of the United States and allies.
And what we're trying to do is basically amalgamate our powers to basically compete with the Chinese.
U .S. Steel might be number two in the United States, but they're only 24th in the world.
They're not competitive.
So, you know, obviously when you get these kind of decisions from the U .S.
delegates, you know, Japanese delegates, obviously Japanese corporations would obviously back off, especially with, you know, a lot of words and schemes that are being suggested by Mr.
Trump. Do you think it'll be raised in the talks, Professor?
Or do you think it's more feeling each other out here that it's too contentious an issue actually to come up by name between the two leaders today?
It would be wonderful if the two could actually talk over these things with actual names, but I'm pretty sure that Mr.
Ishiba is just going out there to warm up the relationship with Mr.
Trump. Now, as we all know, Mr.
Abe had a wonderful relationship with Mr.
Trump, and Ishida -san is basically going to try to amend or continue that kind of war relationship.
But let's not forget that Mr.
Ishida's arch rival and long -term almost hatred to Mr.
Abe was pretty evident when we saw the new cabinet announced by Mr.
Ishida. It might be a bit of a difficult deal here.
What else might be on the agenda?
Well, basically, it would be security issues towards China, consolidation of power, the region against, you know, rising powers, particularly the hegemony war between the United States and China, and for Japan to basically side with the Allies and continue to do that.
I think security measures would be a very important one.
What do you see going forward?
Do a bit of crystal ball gazing for us, Professor.
Are these two characters, these two types of leaders who you think will have a good working relationship over the rest of this Trump term?
Well, Mr. Ishiba will try hard.
I don't think he'll succeed like Mr.
Abe, but this is one time.
I know you've asked me a question and I should give you an answer, but this is one time where a crystal pole is just so unpredictable.
The one thing we can say about Mr.
Trump is that he is totally unpredictable, especially in the schemes that he may come up only to raise his populism.
He could sacrifice the international relationship that's been built over the years.
He'd be happy to do that.
So, you know, to give a mid -long -term estimate on the consequences of his actions and his words are totally unpredictable.
That is the only predictable thing I can say, actually, about Mr.
Trump. I think on this occasion we'll forgive our crystal ball gazer Dr.
Sejiro Takashita, Professor of Management and Information at the University of Shizuoka there.
Yeah, certainly filed in one that we will keep watching here on World Business Report.
I'm sure if anything more comes out of those talks on The Late Team, Andrew Peach and the team on The Late Edition will bring you up to date on all of it.
Let's turn to another big Asian economy now.
India's central bank has cut its benchmark interest rate for the first time in almost five years in an effort to shore up economic growth and reverse what's become a bit of a broad downturn in the world's most populous country.
Our India business correspondent, Achana Shukla, told us why they've made the decision now.
It was firstly widely anticipated because one, inflation, which has been a square focus of the central bank for the last two years, is slowly easing.
It's still not in the target range, but it is coming to a more comfortable zone.
And secondly, we all have seen India's world beating growth is slowing.
Consumption has fallen, especially among urban Indians.
Corporate profits across sectors have shrunk.
Investments in businesses have been lagging, and that had been putting a lot of pressure on the central bank to ease rates.
Also, the Reserve Bank in the last few days has injected about $18 billion to ease a cash crunch in the banking system domestically.
It's a slightly different system, isn't it, in India?
So maybe explain, because to the outside eye, looking at the numbers still looks very high, you know, comparatively to other countries around the world.
You know, the Reserve Bank had raised the interest rates drastically in 2022 and 2023.
But in the last two years, they kept the rate high at 6 .5 percent for more than two years because the inflation was a bit driven by the urban class Indians.
Rural economy wasn't doing that well.
Now we've seen a change in that mix.
We are seeing the rural economy and rural spending go up marginally up.
But the urban Indians are facing a bit of a crunch.
Wages have remained stagnant.
prices across the board have been consistently high and that has somewhere curtailed the spending power for Indians add to that most of the Indians were consuming and buying products through cheap credit card loans and cheaper loans that were available last year the Reserve Bank of India put up a hold
button on that made those borrowings more expensive because we were seeing a lot of these credit card defaults go up and the central bank put a pause on that so that has kind of taken away from the spending power of the urban Indians and has a drastic impact on India's growth rates, which are coming
to be at the weakest pace in four years.
Add to that corporate investments have not been coming in and business expansions haven't happened in the last three to four years.
A lot of foreign money has moved out to other markets from India and all of that has put pressure.
And all of that, of course, against the international backdrop that we've talked about loads on the programme as well.
Have we heard much from the Indian government about how it intends to try and deal and work with the new Trump administration going forward now?
Well, certainly that is a key focus.
And we've seen signals of that in the budget that was announced last Saturday, where the finance minister has tinkered with the tariff rates.
She's cut the top segment of the tariff from being a 150 % at the top level.
India's highest tariff rate is 70%.
And a lot of other import goods have seen tariff and custom duty cuts.
And that somewhere signals to the Trump administration and to the world that India is slowly easing its protectionism stance.
We've seen Donald Trump very categorically name India as one of the makers of tariffs and being a country with one of the highest rates of tariffs.
But the Indian government is giving signals that they are open to easing tariffs.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to meet Donald Trump later this month in his visit to Washington and before that these signals are already in place.
There is also a worry of the weakening rupee and the impact that Trump's tariff wars across the world could have on imports coming to India and that is also something that the Indian government and the central bank are both focusing on.
That's our India business correspondent Archana Shukla there.
Well let's take a look at what's been moving financial markets this friday and as ever shanti kellerman chief investment officer at mg wealth here in london is with us to do just that shanti great to have you back on the program good to be here what do you want to start with big week of kind of tech
results or were the us dropped a little bit earlier in the week with azure it's sort of cloud business was a bit that was sort of raising flags for investors as well what what was it was is it a sort of a recalibration post deep seek or what's going on so a lot of their growth rates are falling so so microsoft
was actually the previous week but it went from 35 year on your growth to 30 and you know 30 growth is still good but if you had priced in you were going to get 35 a year you compound all that out for many years it is a pretty big difference in in what's coming in so it's just that reassessment of growth
rates. And when stocks are on quite expensive levels, that can result in a pretty big change in the price.
Time flies when you're enjoying yourself, doesn't it?
Who could remember that it was last week until then?
Yeah, on the US jobs number, always one that we look at, isn't it?
Because the health of the US economy kind of then begins to set the tempo for what the Federal Reserve, the central bank in the US does with its interest rate, which obviously can always have a big impact around the world as well.
So what did we learn?
What did you extrapolate from that earlier today?
So yeah, we had 143 ,000 jobs created.
That was a bit lower than expected, but they revised up some of the numbers from the previous month and unemployment fell from 4 .1 to 4%, so still a pretty healthy picture.
We saw the interest rate for US treasuries go up a little bit with people probably going, well, do we really need to cut rates if we're in a place where we're jobs and unemployment is low maybe we push some of that out a bit um so we had equity markets down slightly and and bond yields up a bit today
and you always do a great job of this so look ahead to next week for us um a bit of crystal ball gazing as we said earlier in the program what are you going to be watching out for what do you think uh our listeners should be watching out for in terms of things that might tell them big stuff about what's
going on in the world next week yeah well we're still going to be getting company results we've gotten most of the tech stuff out but we'll probably get a bit more on to you know everything else which is a lot of other things that are happening and then you know who knows what we'll get from Mr Trump
I feel like Monday all those tariffs a lifetime ago already so we'll have to make sure we're checking the news regularly yeah absolutely that is I remember that from the first Trump presidency that's how it tends to work doesn't it and just this afternoon just looking at the wires President Trump taking
on a battle about paper straws versus plastic straws at the moment apparently he wants plastic straws back again not sure that's going to move financial markets but he certainly um gets himself in the news headlines doesn't he shanti thanks as always for your time shanti kellerman there uh the chief
investment officer at mng wealth you're with world business report on the bbc world service now the african mining indaba conference uh 2025 has concluded in cape town south africa with government officials and mining sector leaders discussing african mining investment next week for us a bit of crystal
ball gazing as we said earlier in the program what are you going to be watching out for what do you think uh our listeners should be watching out for in terms of things that might tell them big stuff about what's going on in the world next week yeah well we're still going to be getting company results
we've gotten most of the tech stuff out but we'll probably get a bit more on to you know everything else which is a lot of other things that are happening um and then you know who knows what we'll get from mr trump i feel like monday all as tariffs a lifetime ago already so we'll have to make sure we're
checking the news regularly.
Yeah absolutely that is I remember that from the first Trump presidency that's how it tends to work doesn't it and just this afternoon just looking at the wires President Trump taking on a battle about paper straws versus plastic straws at the moment apparently he wants plastic straws back again not sure
it's going to move financial markets but he certainly gets himself in the news headlines doesn't he Shanti thanks as always for your time Shanti Kellerman there uh the chief investment officer at mng wealth you're with world business report on the bbc well see how they're scoring on us shots left and right
i know they know our next play before we even make it we got to tighten up off the court too businesses track and sell our personal information they dunk on us all the time with that data wait what do you mean you have to exercise your privacy rights.
If you don't opt out of the sale and sharing of your information, businesses will always have the upper hand.
The ball is in your court.
Get your digital privacy game plan at privacy .ca .gov.
Now the African Mining Indaba Conference 2025 has concluded in Cape Town, South Africa, with government officials and mining sector leaders discussing African mining investment and trying to address some of those challenges facing the sector right across the continent.
Minerals that are essential for the global transition to green energy have been, as you might imagine, at the centre of all the discussions.
These minerals include things like lithium, cobalt, nickel, copper.
One company that is exploring this in Africa is Cobalt Metals.
Bill Gates, the former Microsoft founder, billionaire philanthropist, who now backs this particular company and its chief executive in africa is fikei makai uh who joins us now from cape town um fikei thanks for being with us on world business report thank you for having me um the conference this week
then it comes of course against the backdrop of everything that's going on in the in the drc as well doesn't it that's kind of telling us about i guess the less salubrious side of the hunt for these key minerals was that kind of discussed the the security around what all of you guys are trying to do
in terms of investment and working in some of these places that's sort of top thing when you've uh it's always the most interesting bit oh sorry just lost you a little bit there I was just going to say um one of the most interesting bits of all of these kind of events is that it's the conversations
away from the main conversations what are you having with chats with colleagues what are what are the kind of big issues at the moment for the industry do you think well I think it's just important for governments investors financial institutions and the civil oh you need to just align on industrialization objectives
that include the energy transition and climate change yeah for Kay just we'll try one more again there because we're just struggling a little bit with your line you're just coming in and out a tiny bit just try just try and um re -emphasize what what you guys are focusing at COBOLD on and on what some
of the conversations are the big conversations that the indaba have been yeah the important thing is the need for for investors private players and governments including civil society tech innovators and academia to align on industrialization objectives which include the energy transition and and climate
change and we as cobalt metals are are leading with that in technology and mineral exploration so it was we met various forms of stakeholders mentioned above yeah um and in terms of big focus hasn't there again being on things what we call term conflict minerals and so i guess the ethics around all
that no one we've spoken to you guys at kobold before been a key part of what you do as a business but can you just explain to people how you do that how you how you sort of work that out how you um how you build that into your business processes yeah well it's absolutely a fundamental ethic of the company
for us to do business in places where we know we're held accountable.
The governments are held accountable and we respect the host communities.
That's just key to doing things right anywhere in the world.
And how do you keep, there's been a lot of conversations, especially when we have leaders from sub -Saharan Africa, a lot of the countries that you're talking about here and where you guys work about keeping some of the processes, the high quality ends of the jobs in some of those countries, you know,
the processing of these materials rather than just having it dug out and sent around the world.
Are you working on some of those areas too?
Yes, I mean, we have a conversation with the head of state in Zambia where we have our fantastic Ngomba Copper Project.
It's important that all the stakeholders at the table, the regulators, the environmentalists and ourselves, because environmental protection is one of our ethics as well.
So it's not a muted conversation.
It needs to be loud.
We all need to be accountable to make sure we're doing the right thing.
Well, Fikeyi, thanks so much for speaking to us today and thanks for bearing with us with a few tech gremlins there.
Fikeyi Makai there, the African CEO of the company Cobalt Metals speaking to us from the mining in Darby in Cape Town, South Africa.
Important that all the stakeholders at the table, the regulators, the environmentalists and ourselves, because environmental protection is one of our ethics as well.
So it's it's not a muted conversation.
It needs to be loud.
We all need to be accountable to make sure we're doing the right thing.
Well, Fikey, thanks so much for speaking to us today, and thanks for bearing with us with a few tech gremlins there.
Fikey Makai there, the African CEO of the company Cobalt Metals, speaking to us from the mining in Darba in Cape Town, South Africa.
Now it's Super Bowl Sunday this weekend in the United States.
The game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs takes place in New Orleans.
The game itself, of course, is big business.
Ticket prices averaging more than $6 ,000.
But the biggest business of all concerns the TV ads during the breaks in the game.
Big brands paying as much as $8 million for a 30 -second advertising slot, hoping to win as big with TV viewers as the two teams do on the sporting field.
Matt Edwards is a partner at the advertising creative agency Big Small and he told us a bit more about how important a Super Bowl ad still is.
I think it is still just as big a deal and the fact that there's a wait list this year, 12 advertisers long suggests that the demand is very much still there because being named a Super Bowl ad puts a tag on your commercial that elevates it beyond others, even before people have seen it.
So people are interested to see the Super Bowl ads in a similar way, actually, to they are in the UK to see the Christmas ads from the big retailers.
And what it means is it allows you to treat the commercial as more like a movie release.
So nowadays, it's not that only the people watching the Super Bowl are going to see that spot, but they're going to see your trailer.
They're going to be watching it on YouTube maybe the day before the Super Bowl even.
So it's almost treated like a movie event.
These are launchers of these commercials.
Such an interesting point.
So you get even more eyeballs, people who might not watch the Super Bowl itself, might not be interested in American football and the sport at all, are seeking out the ads because there's all that kind of hullabaloo around them, like you say, like a movie release.
So they go and seek it out online somewhere else, and you get extra kind of eyeballs that way.
Exactly that. I mean, I was looking at the david beckham commercial and that's now that's why the beer brand yeah so i was out and about in in london yesterday and there are seen this as well everywhere posters all over the place for the other david advertising the other david as a teaser so then of course
you go home and you think what's the other david so you google it and you've watched it even if you're not in the us and you're not going to be watching the super bowl so it's all those eyeballs and then i think it's now had about 30 million views on youtube as well so it's not just the people that are watching
the Super Bowl spot.
It's all of that circus that goes with it.
The circus, though, does mean that the budgets in terms of what agencies like yours and the companies themselves, right, are throwing at these adverts as well.
And we've seen they've got slicker and slicker.
As you say, they're almost like little mini Hollywood events.
Now, does the spend put in come back to the company?
Or is it still a risk?
Is there still a kind of roll of the dice in that?
There will always be some risk.
And certainly David Beckham and Matt Damon in the same commercial doesn't come cheap.
There are other ways of doing it.
And it was interesting that Doritos, they actually use user -generated content.
So they run a big contest ahead of the Super Bowl.
They get users to create what they think the Doritos Super Bowl ad should be.
And they've narrowed it down now to three commercials.
And whichever one goes out will win a million dollars.
So that's at the very low cost end of doing things.
But they're still able to create a lot of buzz out of doing it.
The challenge for all advertisers and for all brands in the world now is the battle for attention.
We're so saturated with incredible TV shows, movies, computer games, books, that it's really, really hard to get someone to spend their time looking at your brand.
And therefore, you do have to go bigger, better, more original, more unexpected than ever before if you want people to pay you any attention.
And as a result, how much has the financial firepower of the big tech firms been a part of this?
We know that this is going to be streamed in the United States on Fox, about as conventional a broadcaster as you can get, an old -fashioned paid -for cable TV network, and yet a lot of the advertising bang for your saying is going to come well away from where Fox are.
It's giving it that platform, isn't it?
Because if it wasn't in the game, it wouldn't be a Super Bowl commercial and therefore it wouldn't have that cachet and that tag that would make people seek it out elsewhere.
If you were just trailing a Stella Arte d 'Or spot with David Beckham in it, people would still watch it because people like Beckham and he's a big draw.
But the fact that it is a Super Bowl commercial that's going to be on that Fox platform really, really helps.
Is there one in particular you're excited for of the ads that have sort of been trailed?
There's one I would definitely recommend people go and have a look at which is the Mountain Dew commercial which features Seal, the singer, as a seal.
and this is a good example it's a good one -off and it's a good example of what we think of as meaningless distinctiveness where you have something that almost doesn't make any sense and in fact i think the final line of the commercial is someone saying it doesn't make any sense but it's very watchable
and it will definitely stand out i think yeah as big a part of the the main event isn't it sometimes for people the adverts and we certainly know universities look at it and all the marketing professionals big thanks to matt edwards creative partner at the advertising agency big small there
