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The US economy has just had its strongest quarter in two years.
But do the figures tell the whole story?
It's really a fantastic number, and it's a great Christmas present for the American people.
People are still spending money, but there is a little bit less excitement about it.
It's World Business Report from the BBC World Service.
I'm Rahul Tandon, and will a pill version of the weight loss drug Wegovi bring down its price?
And Indian women cricketers get a pay increase, but is it enough?
You know, there are lots of headlines like this in the U.S. today.
We are getting a fresh look at the state of the economy today.
U.S. gross domestic product increased 4.3 percent in the third quarter.
And this number reflects increases in consumers.
Let's take a look at the state of the world's largest economy, because it impacts everybody, doesn't it?
Which, according to its latest GDP figures, has grown at an annualised rate of 43, much higher than expected.
President Trump said the growth figures showed that the Trump economic golden age was full steam ahead, adding you've not seen anything yet.
Shortly after the data came out, Kevin Hassett, head of President Trump's National Economic Council, spoke to the US network CNBC.
It's really a fantastic number, and it's a great Christmas present for the American people.
And I would say that the headline for me is two things.
First of all, that President Trump's trade agenda is working.
And so we got about 1.5% of the growth on 4.3% because we reduced the trade deficit.
The other thing that I think, which is a big macro thing that we're seeing, is that the artificial intelligence productivity boom is really clearly in the data.
But that data came two months late because of the US government shutdown.
So how reflective are those numbers of the economy now?
Here's our international business correspondent, Theo Leggett.
In the three months to September, consumer spending was strong and exports grew sharply.
But there are caveats.
The figures have been delayed by nearly two months and are now outdated.
More recent economic indicators have been less positive, with the unemployment rate hitting a four-year high in November.
And today's data does not include the impact of the 43-day government shutdown, which began in October.
Let us bring in George Conboy, president of Brighton Securities, based in Rochester in New York.
George, give us your thoughts on the figure.
Seems like good news, but slightly out of date.
Well, Rahul, out of date as it may be, it does look really good.
And it makes us think that likely the tax cuts and perhaps even more importantly, the intangible regulation cuts that we're seeing across the economy from the administration, are helping the economy.
Certainly investors seem to agree with the indices and certainly the S&P heading new highs.
Very positive.
It did again today, didn't it?
Try and answer this question because it's one that seems to baffle a lot of people.
Consumer spending is strong.
Consumer sentiment is low in the U.S.
How is that happening?
Yeah, I like to talk about talking the talk and walking the walk, right?
When you say well, I'm a little worried, I'm a little concerned, there's your negative consumer sentiment.
But when you take out your wallet and you buy this or you buy that, that's walking the walk.
And the consumer seems to be doing both, but walking the walk counts more than talking the talk.
Well, let us find out, George.
Stay with us because we've been speaking to Maddy Rogers.
She's the owner of the Vintage House in Chicago, a store that she opened earlier this year.
I started by asking...
How has this year been?
I would say, I mean, I've had a pretty good year as far as a first year having a business.
I've incurred a little bit of debt, but nothing too out of the ordinary, I would say.
I mean, I've noticed, I mean, vintage is not an essential good for people.
It's something that they buy just as a fun treat for themselves.
So it's a bit...
I have noticed a decline in the last couple of months.
I think with the holiday and with everything else with the economy, people are definitely holding onto their money a little bit more than they used to.
I'm noticing people have less in their savings than they used to.
And so if they're buying vintage, they're going to make sure it's something that they're going to wear forever.
And it's something very intentional.
And so I would say kind of lazy purchases are not occurring, in the same way that I've noticed that they probably would in the last couple of years.
Yeah.
That is really interesting because, on the one hand, the figures are telling us consumer spending is strong.
But other figures tell us that consumer sentiment is low.
And from what you're saying, that's what you're saying.
I am.
Yeah.
I mean, people, you have to spend money.
You know, there's things you're always going to have to spend money on.
But I would say people are clutching their wallet a lot more than they used to.
And they're being very intentional with it.
It feels like they're mostly buying the essentials.
And it's one of those things where one purchase can make a really big difference for people in a way that it didn't used to.
So for you as a business, when you're seeing that around you, How do you cope with that?
How do you adapt to that?
It's not easy, is it?
No.
And I, you know, I love what I sell.
I love selling vintage.
But at the same time, I have to make money.
You do.
I do.
So it's a difficult balance striking between wanting to sell people things but at the same time, wanting to be really intentional with selling things to people that are going to really appreciate it.
But also when you know that people are being a little bit more careful with their money, does that mean you have to reduce your prices?
A little bit.
Yeah.
And the area that I'm in in wicker park, where my store is, I would say there's 14 vintage stores within a two block radius.
So there's a lot of competition.
I mean, vintage is experiencing such a big boom right now.
So there's a lot of competition within the vintage world.
So it is.
I have noticed I've needed to lower some prices and it's like people are much more likely to haggle now than they used to.
And they feel more comfortable doing that with vintage than they obviously would with a new store.
Um, But a lot of things I have more flexibility about than I would say I did two years ago.
We're coming to the end of this year.
How would you describe this year and how do you look forward to next year?
Are you optimistic?
Are you worried?
Where are you?
I'm a bit worried.
I mean, going into January, February, March, they're traditionally not great months for retail.
It's winter, it's cold, no one wants to go out of their house.
And finding ways to encourage people to do so and to encourage them to shop is not something I've had to do before, because it's my first year having a storefront.
So I'm a little bit worried about that kind of prospect.
But I also have a lot of optimism.
I mean, it's been one year and the business is doing well enough and I'm happy with it and I've got a really solid team of employees and um, I've never had that before.
So I have some optimism.
But I I would be lying if I said I didn't have some worries.
I mean especially like paying people equitably and it's like all of the costs are slowly going up.
So I know that it won't be a super easy year.
But at the same time, I do have some optimism about it.
Final question to you on those employees.
One of the bits of data that we've been getting is unemployment going up in the US.
So when you look at your employees, I'm not saying because of the state of your business, but is that becoming something that people are increasingly worried about?
Yeah.
I mean, I haven't had employees before this year and I, you know, I want to pay them what they're worth, and doing that is expensive.
And there's not a lot of areas for me to cut costs in my business.
And I had to have a transparent conversation with my employees where I was like hey, I have to sell X amount per day to pay you guys.
So if it starts to get to a point where I can't meet that I might have to cut hours, and I never want to cut them beyond like a couple at a time.
I want to do everything I can to preserve that.
But yeah, it's.
It's difficult to pay people well and appreciate them for the good work that they're doing, while also needing to hit a bottom line.
George still with us.
What did you make of what Maddie had to say there, George?
Well, Rahul, I think she's making my case for me.
And Maddie is like most smart small business owners, cautiously optimistic but concerned, always watching every penny in a small business.
But listen to the subtext.
She opened that business within the last year and she is optimistic about her prospects.
Or she wouldn't have started a business like that.
So I think that's my case of talking the talk with caution, walking the walk. with optimism.
Yeah, you like that phrase, don't you, George?
I do tonight.
You do tonight.
Let us look now at the noise around China's economy in 2025 which, a lot of it was driven by events in Washington, as President Trump used tariffs and trade pressure to try and force Beijing to change course.
But the year showed how resilient China's economy is and its growing global influence.
Our Asia business correspondent, Surajana Diwadi, has this report.
The big story of 2025 was tariffs.
And for the world's second largest economy, China, U.S.
President Donald Trump's Liberation Day announcement hit hard.
April 2nd 2025 will forever be remembered as the day American industry was reborn, the day America's destiny was reclaimed and the day that we began to make America wealthy again.
Yet China largely defied the pressure, exposing how dependent the US remains on Chinese supply chains.
Beijing responded with calibrated measures, including rare earth controls affecting automakers and industries worldwide.
Here's China's Commerce Ministry spokesperson, He Yadong.
We have repeatedly emphasised that rare earth-related items have dual uses, for both civilian and military purposes.
Implementing export controls is in line with international practices.
China leaned on its industrial dominance, blunting the impact of tariffs and turning trade policy into leverage.
In South Korea, the two sides struck a trade deal.
A one-year pause on tariffs.
China agreed to buy more US agricultural goods and suspend new export controls on critical minerals.
Experts say the meeting strengthened Xi Jinping's hand in the superpower rivalry which was on display as he met Donald Trump at APEC.
At home consumption slowed.
Retail sales growth fell as households stayed cautious amid property market stress, job uncertainty and weak confidence.
Policymakers had hoped consumption would drive growth, but spending remained subdued.
At the fourth plenary session of China's 20th Communist Party Congress, Xi Jinping outlined the country's economic priorities for the next five years, saying it was important to build on strengths, remove development bottlenecks, shore up areas of weakness and seize initiative amid intense international competition.
Exports, however, held up better than expected.
Front-loading shipments ahead of tariffs and expanding to Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Latin America and Africa helped stabilise trade beyond the US and Europe.
The big question is, can this momentum continue into 2026?
China's property market remains under pressure, though.
Major developers face debt and default risks.
Even as property continues to slow, China's tech sector proved resilient.
TikTok, at the centre of US-China tensions, struck a deal to remain in America under a new ownership arrangement.
Here's Donald Trump again.
We talked about TikTok and other things, but we talked about TikTok and he gave us the go-ahead.
You know it's run by American investors and American companies, great ones, great investors, the biggest.
You don't get bigger, I don't imagine.
As 2025 ends, China's deep structural issues like slowing domestic consumption and property sector stress, mean the country and its economy will continue to face significant challenges in 2026.
So, in general, with that report there George, the thing that struck me about this up and down relationship this year was, whilst they both talk about decoupling from each other, both economies are so reliant on each other.
Right.
We need Chinese goods in our economy, and the Chinese need our patronage.
There's no question there.
There's a deep relationship between the two economies.
You're not going to see that sever.
At the same time, very competitive.
They want to target our industries.
We want to make sure that we protect our own economy from that trade deficit.
So that's not Not likely to change in 2026.
No, it's not.
More of the same is what George is telling us there.
Round off your 2025 with a brilliant podcast from the BBC World Service.
13 Minutes is the podcast telling epic space stories, from the first moon landing to the creation of the Space Shuttle.
Unlike any spacecraft we had ever flown before...
The Con invites you to enter a world where nothing is as it seems.
There was somebody out there who's faking pregnancies.
What does she have to gain from this?
And CyberHack investigates alleged cyber gangs and the heists and hacks they're accused of committing.
The largest cyber criminal case in the FBI.
Search for 13 Minutes The Con and CyberHack.
Wherever you get your BBC podcasts, your With World Business report from the BBC World Service.
Let's turn to what's been one of the other stories of the year, which has been the continuing growth of weight loss drugs.
And now the US Food and Drug Administration has approved a pill version of the weight loss drug Wegovy, which is made by the pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk.
It's the first pill of its kind to receive approval from the regulators.
Some say this could mark a new era for weight loss drugs.
Let's bring in Dr Timothy Garvey, Professor of Medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham in the US there, and obesity researcher who worked on the clinical trials for the WeGoV pill.
Let's start there.
What was that like, Dr Garvey?
Well, when you're a principal investigator of one of these clinical trials, you have patients that volunteer and they lose weight, they become healthier and they're very happy.
So it's an enjoyable experience to conduct these trials.
And when you were conducting these trials, did you think this was the start of something major?
Because the growth of weight loss drugs has been really one of the medical developments of our time, hasn't it?
I think it stands equal to other historical landmarks in the history of medicine, equivalent to, for example, the discovery of insulin, discovery of penicillin, the polio vaccine.
I mean, these medicines are just transformational in terms of our ability to improve the health and quality of life of patients in ways that we never had tools with this level of efficacy before.
So why do we need a pill, though?
Because won't injections be better, in a sense of just getting more of the medicine into the bloodstream?
It's more efficient than taking a pill.
Well, I think there's two reasons.
One is you know, despite the outstanding efficacy of these newer medicines, if you think about it, we still treat this disease very poorly.
When you consider that after one year, over half of the patients have stopped taking the medicine.
And this is a chronic, lifelong disease.
We need to maintain this weight loss and the health benefits of weight loss.
Now it's multifactorial, but when you have a person taking the form of administration that they prefer, predictably adherence will be better.
And there are some patients who just prefer pills over the injections, and this really increases our options for therapy and gives them that option.
And And the efficacy is the same as the injectable, essentially.
Side effects are the same.
And also the FDA indication brought along the secondary prevention of major cardiovascular disease events, which was proven with this injectable form.
But that indication was transferred over to the oral form, which was good news.
So there's that extra option for patients who prefer it.
Secondly, the oral pill does not need refrigeration like the injectable form does.
So this makes it easier to use and store the medicine.
It's better for travelers who can take the medicine with them and not worry about refrigeration.
And I think also expands the capacity to market this drug on a worldwide basis in regions where refrigeration may be problematic.
That is an extremely important point.
We saw that during the pandemic, didn't we, with some of the vaccines.
So an important development.
Stay with us, Dr. Garvey.
We want to bring George Conboy back into this.
We've seen companies like Eli Lilly really grow on the back, haven't we, of these weight loss drugs.
So if there's a pill version that they get involved with, that could drive, you know, some of the valuations of these companies up a lot more.
Yeah, investors seem to think so.
Novo Nordic shares have been crushed this year because there's so much competition down 50 since February, but today up 7 on the news of that pill.
So, just as the doctor says, investors feel similarly optimistic that a pill will bring more patients in, due to the shelf-stable nature, due to people who are afraid of injectables.
It's going to bring more people into that market.
Yeah.
Certainly is.
Dr. Garvey, have a listen to this as well.
I'm sure you know Judith Grummer, one of the leading experts on weight loss drugs, who's based at Columbia University.
She thinks this is an important moment because it could make some of these weight loss drugs cheaper.
I hope so.
I hope that they become ubiquitous drugs.
For the right reasons, though, for the people who need them to improve their health.
Most importantly, I hope they become affordable, because right now they are not affordable for most individuals.
That is an important point, isn't it, Dr. Garvin?
You mentioned the refrigeration.
That won't be needed here.
Do you think, in the long run, having a pill rather than an injection is going to make this more affordable, more available for some of those who can't afford it at the moment?
I don't think the pill by itself is going to lead to lower costs.
I mean...
Traditionally, I mean the United States has paid up to four or five times more for these obesity based, these obesity medications than other westernized societies.
I think the Trump administration has helped bring these costs down.
And in the press release it appears that they're going to offer this, this new oral Wegovy medication.
The beginning dose is 150 a month and then up to about 350 a month for the higher doses, which is a lot better than the original cost, which were over 1000 out-of-pocket pay.
The list price hasn't been announced yet, but these pay out-of-pocket costs are much lower than previously, both for the injectable and for the pill.
This is really a changing moment in terms of our ability to get these medicines to people who need them to improve their health.
And although I also like to see expanding insurance company coverage for these medications and I think these lower prices will turn that around a little bit too
So we're in a new era, I think, or in an improving era in terms of the cost of these medicines.
Well, Dr. Garvey, thank you so much for joining us.
George, I want to bring you in here.
A lot of those companies.
If demand is very strong, as it is for these drugs, they don't need lower prices, do they?
Oh, well, they don't now.
But what's going to help with those prices is the absolute stiff competition.
Each of these companies wants to outdo the other.
And as they bring out new versions or new formulations of this product.
There's so much demand you're going to see at some point prices will come down.
And then over years you'll find more generic versions start to come out once the patents start to come off.
So these drugs are going to be with us for a long time.
Whether it's soon or a while from now, eventually they will get cheaper.
That's what they always do.
Yep, that is often the case.
Right.
I've just come back from India where, if you looked at some of the sports news channels over the past few days, a lot of them have been covering this story.
Big news coming out of Indian cricket, and this one's a game changer for women's cricket in the country.
Now the BCCI has just approved a massive pay hike for the domestic, An important moment with Indian female cricketers seeing their match fees doubled for domestic matches.
This, of course, follows the recent victory of the women's team in the Cricket World Cup.
So that got us thinking about women's pay in sport generally.
Jane McManus is an author and academic in cricket.
Women's sport.
Jane, thanks so much for joining us here.
An important moment for Indian women's cricketers to see their pay doubled as well.
Is that generally what we're seeing across the sporting board now when it comes to pay gaps between women and men?
I don't know that we're necessarily seeing the pay double like that.
I mean, that's pretty impressive, but we are definitely seeing an upward trend.
So the way that these payments are structured is different.
So you don't necessarily see uniformity in how the pay is going up.
But what you do see is an increased value on women's leaks generally and women's teams.
Are there sports, do you think, particularly in the US because, let's be honest, that's where most of the money is that do better when it comes to women's pay in sport than others.
It strikes me that tennis may do quite well here at the top.
Yeah, I was just going to say tennis is the leader in the clubhouse and it's been that way for a good 40 years.
You could be a women's tennis player in the middle of the pack and still make a really good living.
And that just hasn't been the case for sports around the world for women until very recently.
I mean, the WNBA right now, they're renegotiating their contract.
The Players Association and the WNBA are relooking at that collective bargaining agreement and that's going to bring some changes.
I think there's some question about whether the season's going to start on time if the players decide, you know, not to play, or if they get locked out or something like that happens.
But you're also seeing at the national women's um soccer league, those salaries are also being evaluated.
The idea is, how can you you look at a lot of these leagues like they're startups in some ways, because they're so much newer than their complementary men's leagues yeah um, and it's how can you make sure that there are wages without undercutting the financial stability of the league itself?
WNBA of course we're talking about women's basketball in the States.
Can I ask you, tennis does well.
Is it easier, do you think, for women in individual sports rather than team sports?
Well, so I mean there's so much baggage that comes into these ideas about women playing sports, when you talk about that.
And certainly you know, women have really only been able to succeed in sports insofar as they're able to succeed in society.
So when women face stronger barriers to employment writ large, then that of course is going to affect them in sports.
And now we're seeing some of those barriers change.
But Traditionally the sports that did really well for women were the ones where the ideas of what women were supposed to be doing weren't really too threatened.
So tennis had the short skirts.
You had one-on-one.
Nobody sweats too much.
You know, it's all of these kinds of things that make it seem like it's not so unfeminine.
And then that's where the rewards you know have started to come, where you look at figure skating or gymnastics or some of these more feminine sports.
And now I think that's changing.
Now you see that there's real value placed on women who can be aggressive and competitive, and all of these values in sports that we used to assign to men but not women.
And that's changing.
Whenever we cover these stories, a thought goes through my mind.
There are important moments, but we should have equality anyway.
We shouldn't really need to be talking about it, should we?
Yeah, except when you're looking at like an entertainment and you're looking at something that's meant to make money, which sports have always, kind of, you know, been looked at for that.
You know those values.
That idea of what should be or shouldn't be doesn't apply so much as what makes money.
And so you know, I think one of the things about India and the World Cup of Cricket is that you know they ended up breaking just smashing the records for attendance and for viewership.
They had 300,000 fans who came to watch and then 446 million total viewers in India.
So that is just paradigm shifting.
And so I now think you have people looking not at like oh, we should be giving women more, but it's more that people want to watch them.
And now you know it's that there's value in that and that they should be party to some of that value.
Listen, it's been an absolute pleasure talking to you, Jay.
I look forward to speaking to you again.
George, I just come back from India, where more people were watching the Women's World Cup than the men.
And that will drive money and equality in pay, won't it?
Absolutely.
Great to see it.
And if they've got the demand, they deserve the pay.
They certainly do.
You all ready for Christmas, George?
All shopping done?
Merry Christmas to everybody across the pond.
You didn't answer the question, though.
Are you still going out?
Have you got all your presents?
We're going to be wrapping tonight, Rahul.
Well, listen, we will let you go now and go and wrap all those presents for everybody out there.
Thank you to George for all his comments there, particularly on the state of the U.S. economy.
We like to look at those figures, but they don't always tell us the whole story.
So great to get George's input on what they mean.
Round off your 2025 with a brilliant podcast from the BBC World Service.
13 Minutes is the podcast telling epic space stories, from the first moon landing to the creation of the Space Shuttle.
Unlike any spacecraft we had ever flown before...
The Con invites you to enter a world where nothing is as it seems.
There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies.
What does she have to gain from this?
And CyberHack investigates alleged cyber gangs and the heists and hacks they're accused of committing.
The largest cyber criminal case in the FBI.
Search for 13 Minutes, The Con and CyberHack wherever you get your BBC podcasts.
