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O -D -O -O .com. Hello and welcome to World Business Report from the BBC World Service, I'm David Harper and coming up on this edition Americans have got used to buying cheap imports from places like China without paying import duty.
That's now changing as tax is being collected on low -value packages.
Australians are heading to the polls this weekend, our report has been finding out how the international economic situation has become a key factor in the election.
And do you fancy a golden visa for Kazakhstan?
If you're a UK citizen probably you don't need this, unless you're a big fan of gold, rare Earth metals and you want to be invested there.
And if you've got a couple of hundred thousand dollars you just could get one.
We're starting there with the announcement that we heard just a couple of hours ago of the latest jobs figures in the US.
We've got this just in employers added 177 ,000 jobs in April according to the latest jobs report released just moments ago.
Experts say that job growth was stronger than expected despite economic uncertainty.
And we heard the story breaking with CBS news there it was being watched very carefully with the expectation that the jobs market was set to take a bit of a fall amid the economic uncertainty of Donald Trump's big changes in policy.
The result though was a lot more positive than expected.
One of the people waiting with bated breath was Corey Staley, an economist at the Indeed Hiring Lab.
You look at the headline numbers and you say today was a pretty solid jobs report, right, like we ended up adding a hundred and seventy seven thousand jobs and the unemployment rate stayed constant, so any time you see those numbers, you know, you're fairly happy about that.
But right now, you know, that data isn't necessarily matching the expectations and kind of the general feelings that we're seeing throughout the rest of the economy.
This is quite a long way away from what people were expecting to see.
Do these figures match what you see on the ground?
Yeah so generally they match in terms of what we see in residual labor market strength right.
Like we come from a position, the United States labor market has been really resilient over the last few years, but now it's kind of starting to ask the question of, you know, is the labor market kind of running on fumes right and kind of running off of this past strength that we've had?
Because as we look at tariffs and all of the other things from the new administration, there is some concern that we're going to start seeing some shifts going forward in the data.
We're already seeing consumer confidence and some of the kind of, again, feelings about the economy start to degrade.
We should also mention that during this period, government jobs have dropped by thousands, so for these figures to be as positive as they were, I mean, this must mean that the private sector is really doing quite well.
Certainly. Yeah, if we look back over the last few months, the federal government has shed more than 10 ,000 jobs, about 13 ,000 since kind of the mass layoff started in February.
But we continue to see strength from healthcare.
In this report, we also saw some strength in transportation and warehousing jobs, which might be a signal that, you know, very much like what we saw on the GDP report earlier this week, that employers were hiring to try to build up inventories in advance of the full effects of tariffs.
So that, I think, could be playing into that but certainly a lot of the hiring we're seeing right now is coming out of the private sector.
Corey Staley from indeed there and of course we will be following those figures very closely here on World Business Report.
Staying in the US for a moment, consumers there and in many other countries have got used to being able to order exceptionally cheap clothes and other goods from companies like Xian and Tiemou in China.
Part of the reason this has been possible has been because the US didn't collect import tax on items below $800 in value, known as the de minimis exemption.
Well, that's now changed with a 120 % tax rate or a flat fee being charged, the aim being to allow US companies to be able to compete fairly.
Well, I spoke to Poonam Goyal, an expert in e -commerce at Bloomberg Intelligence, who told me if it would actually level the playing field.
It does make a difference because you're absolutely right that the value of these items is very low.
It's sometimes in the single digits.
But when those single digit items, when a dress on sheen, for example, goes from $8 to $16 or to $20, does that matter?
It's still cheap. Absolutely right.
But that customer who's used to buying clothes for $8, $9, $10, $12 is now going to pay $20 to $30.
So they noticed the difference.
But what that does do is, if you look at retailers like Amazon and the specialty apparel retailers who are selling similar products, now they're no longer price disadvantaged.
So it does help level set the playing field to some extent.
And from the point of view of companies like Shihan and Teemu, presumably their margins are incredibly tight already, is there anything they can do to counteract it?
I mean, raising prices is the only way, right?
And we've already seen them do that.
So to hold their margins where they are, they would need to pass along that tariff to consumers and we're seeing them do it already.
fact they've publicly announced that they will be doing that.
Looking at it from a US government point of view, as we said these are low value packages but they do account for quite a considerable percentage of the shipments coming into the United States.
Given the effort required to collect this money is it worth it from a government point of view?
It's just about making sure that competition is leveled and is the tariff going to make a difference.
It's a lot of volume coming through right?
And it does disadvantage the US players.
So I think it's just about setting standards and it will not be easy but because now the tariff is a blanket tariff, right?
It's not based on a category or a good.
Any low value item coming from China will be subject to the new tariff and that's just level setting the playing field again.
But so it's not likely to actually generate much in the terms of tax revenue it's more about as you say leveling the playing field.
Yeah it does generate some tax revenue right but it's not the same as when you go into a higher value goods right obviously a percentage of tax and a higher value good is going to generate more tax money.
Poinam Goyal there from Bloomberg intelligence speaking to us here on World Business Report.
But we're also joined today by Shanti Kellermann, Chief Investment Officer with M &G Wealth.
This is a thing that's been talked about for quite some time, the fact that there's an unfair situation with companies elsewhere in the world being able to compete with these such low prices.
Is this something that's going to be watched carefully in other places do you think?
I think so, and we've already seen other governments like the UK talk about also investigating this.
I think the tricky things are you might end up spending more on enforcement than you actually get from the taxes and you'll probably also see a good amount of rerouting of goods because right now these restrictions only apply to Hong Kong and China and then there's also a bit of it does help retailers who might be competing against these cheaper products but then there is the harm to the people who can no longer buy those things cheaply so there's arguments on both sides.
Let's look at some of the figures that we've seen today we've been keeping a look at some oil companies in particular Shell that have seen a profit although not as bad as expected and they're certainly not the only oil company in that situation.
Yeah we also had Chevron and Exxon report today which are two of the large US companies.
Across the board revenues at oil companies are down and that's just the oil price has fallen twenty five percent in the last year so they're all you know sell at the price they can get on the market.
Some of these companies are gonna have to probably decrease the amount of dividends they're paying out or the amount of shares they're buying back if the oil price persists at this level.
So that's something to keep an eye on because shareholders obviously want their money coming back.
And the other trend we've seeing is companies kind of pulling back a bit from investments renewables and just focusing on the oil market and the gas market and those conventional energy sources.
It's an interesting point.
We were talking about this in the office earlier because we've heard President Trump who's not alone in this but talking about about drill baby drill about about investing in the oil But of course if they're not making the profits, the companies aren't really gonna wanna put the money up.
Yeah, at the current oil price level, you know, each additional project you get, you know, as we go through the supplies well, might be more and more complex, drilling into seabeds, to exotic locations.
So if you want people to do more drilling, you probably need a higher price than you have right now.
And you also need certainty because a lot of these projects are five, 10, 15 years.
If there's uncertainty about the demand or the level of taxes, it's going to be very difficult to make an investment case.
At the beginning of the programme, we were talking about the US job figures and how there's been a lot of misery predicted in the current climate, but actually the figures that we've just seen aren't as bad as they were being predicted to be.
This is reflected on the stock markets as well, that there have actually been some quite productive periods recently.
Yeah, we had a large fall at the beginning of the month, but since then, as we've had tariffs delayed, kind of saying we'll do talks, watering back those measures, we've had markets come back.
And I think the big thing we've seen over the last, not just this year, but two, three years is consumer sentiment surveys are almost always horrific.
You know, everyone says the world's ending, but then if you look at, are people spending money?
Do people have jobs?
Are companies investing?
All those things are positive.
And I think where I am is look at the data, don't listen to those surveys because the data is what will tell you the truth about what's happening.
we love data on worldbusiness report it is what we live and breathe.
Thank you very much Shanti Kellerman we'll see if we can come back and speak to you a little bit more before we finish today.
Let's move on though because well we've covered stories of cyber attacks many times.
Be honest though how often have you joined an online meeting with your camera switched off the temptation particularly if it's first thing on a Monday morning to hide in the background can be quite strong but could it be allowing cyber criminals to hide in that meeting as well?
Last week has seen a spate of cyber attacks on British retail businesses the clothing and food retailer Marks and Spencer the supermarket Co -op and even the prestige London department store Harrods have been hit Co -op are now ordering staff to keep their cameras on in order to approve that employees are who they claim to be and not potentially somebody more nefarious looking to gain inside info I'm joined by Rachel Percival a cyber security expert at System Force IT here in the UK Rachel thank you for being with us and first of Let's talk about there's three there that I've mentioned, three retail businesses,
but the attacks that these three companies have had have not necessarily been the same.
No I don't think that they are connected, it's probably likely at the moment that they are different gangs or different threat actors.
In the first instance with M &S, it's pointed to Scatter Spider, predominantly UK and US citizens who are quite young.
They have believed to purchase the software Ransomware as a Service from Dragonforce, which is the criminal gang operating in Malaysia, and rent out this Ransomware as a Service and they get a cut of around 20 % or whatever it might be.
With Marks and Spencers, it's believed that they were in system as early as February and gained access potentially through a phishing email, or through impersonation of and social engineering of a senior employee and getting the credentials of that senior member of staff reset.
Let's talk about that for a moment because is this a growing trend?
Is that the the weak link in systems now to just basically pretend to be the employee?
passwords, definitely social engineering in post, yes, and phishing is definitely the hottest one.
Phishing, emails, ransomware, and weak passwords, basically, and that's why it's really important to never reuse a password, have a strong password, follow the National Cyber Security website guidelines as well, and certainly your organization's policies on what they say, the ISMS, the IT systems. You can start from something very simple.
Criminals basically look at individuals and organizations, and as I use the analogy, that we are a jigsaw puzzle.
Every part of our personal identifiable information is one of those pieces.
The more pieces they have of those, the more likely we're going to be targeted and things such as whether it is your date of birth, your birth certificate, driving license number, passport, any of those things, your job title, anything that can be used to commit a crime, to commit fraud or deception, that's effectively what they go after.
I have to consider ourselves warned, I think.
Rachel, thank you very much for joining us.
Rachel Percival, cybersecurity expert at System Force IT.
Great to hear your thoughts on that.
You are with World Business Report from the BBC World Service.
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Now, migration is a highly contentious issue around the world.
Some countries are facing strong pressure to limit the number of people travelling there to live while others are doing their best to encourage people, particularly people with money to invest. A few days ago, we heard how the European Union have taken a rather dim view of Malta's so -called Golden Passport offer which would provide access to the EU as well as Malta in exchange for investment.
Well, Kazakhstan has already welcomed many foreign workers, particularly from Russia since the invasion of Ukraine and subsequent international sanctions.
And now a golden visa scheme there will allow people to relocate for a price.
Russell Rizembayetov is a financier from Kazakhstan and I've asked him why Kazakhstan needs the scheme.
It's sort of a strategic move, you know, to support both the investing climate and align with global practices.
I'd say to keep up with the Jones.
It's not a citizenship.
It's rather a residence permit.
For 10 years we've minimum investment of US $300 ,000 in authorized capital or local securities.
And it's important to say that it is not just a cash fee in order to get this permit.
It is an investment.
What would I have to invest in?
Well, a local company or local securities.
It can be state securities, it can be local corporate securities.
definitely there will be details in the laws, and all the embassies of Kazakhstan will receive detailed instructions how to proceed with this.
And in terms of what I would get out of it as an investor or as a business person, why should I take up an offer like this with Kazakhstan when there are other countries offering similar schemes?
Well, if you're a UK citizen, probably you don't need this unless you're a big fan of gold rare earth metals and you want to be invested there definitely if you want to make not millions but dozens of millions dollars or pounds you will want to know you will have to obtain golden visa to move freely to be considered like a golden investor I'd say is that the main focus people who want to involve who want to invest in the mining sector not Exactly.
Sometimes you just want to trade, for example, with China, with Middle -East, with other partners I'd say.
It's not only. So I said initially as a financier I can move with Kazakh citizenship all over the world, with some limitations.
I mean, getting visa beforehand, but even UK visa is like I can get a UK visa within one day.
You said it's not necessarily for people from the UK.
Who do you think might be attracted to this, citizens of which countries?
Probably China first due to proximity and existing economic ties, those Belt and Road initiatives.
Maybe Russia, who want to get this resident permit in the GFE, because for the last three years we had a rush of Russian citizens applying for a resident's permit.
Potentially because it's somewhere where they wouldn't be subject to as many international sanctions?
Exactly. I've seen presentations and information for people in Kazakhstan who are trying to encourage investment in the tech sector, in trying to encourage high tech businesses to set up there.
Is this part of the plan, to encourage them?
Not recently, but some five or even 10 years ago, we launched this Asana International Financial Center, which is the closest partner of many, many international financial centers around the world.
we apply common law here or English law.
I think more than a half of companies registered there, they are in tech, financial technologies and other things.
Russell Rizmemvietov, financier from Kazakhstan, just giving us a bit of a grounding on what this so -called golden visa scheme might mean.
We're joined now by Oliver Bullough, a writer and journalist who specialises in writing about financial crime and money laundering, and I believe you've written about these kind of schemes at length.
Oliver, is the potentially a darker side to the way the money travels in these kinds of schemes?
There is always a darker side to the way the money travels in these kinds of schemes.
I mean, the Golden Visas are not a new invention, they date back to the 1980s.
It was the Canadians who came up with the idea first, looking to entice people from Hong Kong just after the announcement that Hong Kong would be handed back to China, and then the idea spread to the US, the UK, and more more widely.
And now it's reached Kazakhstan, the challenge is always, how do you check the origin of the money because for a government this is basically free money.
You've got investors coming in and instead of getting a visa in a normal way they're paying for a visa.
And so the temptation for the government is always to take perhaps money from people they shouldn't be taking money from.
And some places manage to do this in a more or less well -regulated way, but even there they tend to have challenges with the effect this has on the sort of local property market and so on, and from what I know of Kazakhstan I would be concerned about their capacity to turn away investment if it were offered.
I was looking at some of the websites from companies who offer advice on these kind of schemes and actually we're talking about Kazakhstan but the list of countries that have a scheme along these lines is quite a long one and you can see what the appeal is because if you're going to invite some people into your country you you want people who have cash to spend and are likely to invest and and have that sort of backing there is there is a lot in it for the country yeah i'm sure you remember um it wasn't too long ago when uh president trump himself announced the launch of the golden card a sort
of green card but made of gold um if you invested five million dollars in the u .s economy isn't entirely clear whether that's actually ever going to happen or whether he can make it happen in the way he wanted to.
But that's precisely the temptation that you're talking about.
There are lots of wealthy people out there.
And if you can incentivize them by offering tax incentives, residence permits, or whatever, perhaps you can get them to bring a bit of that money into your country, then there does tend to be a life cycle, however, in these schemes.
We've seen with Spain has recently shut down its scheme because the money came in to begin with.
It then drove up house prices.
There were various allegations of corruption, which there always are with these schemes because you have a small number of insiders who are basically making the decisions who to approve or who not.
So the temptation for corruption is quite overwhelming.
And then the schemes tend to get shut down.
But as you say, there are a lot of countries that offer such schemes, and they tend to be more starting at the time when others are stopping.
So it'd be interesting to see how long Kazakhstan manages to keep it up.
Because I would expect if I were a betting man, I would put money the fact that there will be some scandals related to this scheme and that it would then get shut down amid widespread anger in about a decade.
And potentially a changing international market, if say the situation in Russia very quickly were to change as well.
Absolutely, I mean obviously as you mentioned, Russians would be the kind of people you'd expect to be interested in this, particularly people looking to relocate because the sanctions on Russia are getting a bit onerous.
Oliver thank you very much for joining us, Oliver Bullough, a writer and journalist who specializes in writing about schemes like these and in financial crime and money laundering.
Now, on Saturday Australians will make their choice about who should govern the country for the next three years.
For the first time millennial and Gen Z voters will outnumber older Australians.
So what are younger voters thinking about as they head to the polls?
Our reporter Vivian Nunez reports from Melbourne.
After five long weeks of campaigning the election is almost here and politics is becoming hard to avoid, tonight it's even made it to the pub.
Drinkers in a formerly working class, now trendy part of inner Melbourne are being offered a refresh course on the electoral system by a youth focused online media firm.
Hey, everyone. Welcome to Policies and Pub from the Daily Oz.
Three years ago, there was a so -called climate election.
This time round, there's been one issue that's dominated more than any other.
Cost of living. It's on everyone's front of mind.
It's what you see when you go to the supermarket, what you pay at the petrol station, especially here in Melbourne.
Since Covid, just like what I used to pay at the groceries is now getting close to double.
Obviously cost of living, like anyone else, housing affordability is a big thing.
Hex debts I think is a big thing.
Medicare as well. Measures to ease cost of living pressures have been central to the campaign.
The conservative Liberal National Coalition has promised to temporarily reduce the cost of petrol by 25 cents a litre and deliver a one -off tax offset of up to twelve hundred Australian dollars, but final polling suggests that hasn't been enough to convince voters it's time for a change.
Labor is predicted to retain power and possibly boost its majority.
But on the final day of campaigning, opposition leader Peter Dutton was staying on message.
I've got a very different view of how I think Saturday night's going to turn out but ultimately it's a decision for Australians about you know who was best able to manage our economy and this election is really a referendum on the last three years people have gone backwards.
We've had the biggest drop in standards in our country's history, prices of everything have gone up.
Prices have gone up but they are no longer rising at the speed they were.
There was a gift to the Labor government this week when the latest official figures showed two key measures now put inflation within the Reserve Bank's target range of 2 and 3 percent.
It's the first time that's happened since 2021 and a series of interest rate cuts is now widely expected.
Responding to the data the Government's Finance Chief Jim Chalmers, could barely contain his delight.
This is a powerful demonstration of the progress that Australians have made together under Labor on inflation and on the economy more broadly as well.
Inflation was much higher and rising very sharply when we came to office and now it is lower, much lower, and underlying inflation has fallen once again in these numbers.
A re -elected Labor Government led by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has promised rebates on energy bills and a small tax cut delivered over two years.
It's also promised to cut outstanding student loans by 20%, wiping thousands off the average hex debt.
So are the major party's promises hitting home with younger voters.
I sat down with the organiser of tonight's event to find out.
My name is Sam Kozlowski, and I'm the co -founder of the Daily Oz, which is Australia's largest social -first news service.
So we do news for young Australians and really give them a way into the news cycle if they feel like traditional media isn't for them.
Gen Z and Millennial is now the biggest voting bloc, it's the first time that's ever happened in Australia and we talked to 2 .5 million of them, so one in three every month.
So they're thinking a lot about rental markets, they're thinking a lot about their education, So the cost of going to university in Australia, the quality of that education and whether it's an easy pathway for them to get into work.
And do those young voters feel well served by what's being offered by the major parties, the minor parties and the independents this time round?
Well they definitely don't feel well served by the two major parties and it's likely that we'll see record numbers of minor party and independent votes, particularly from a young cohort.
Sam says there's been one other crucial factor in this campaign that's weighing on the minds of his young audience.
It's really the actions of the current White House administration is causing a lot of fear and concern and we're seeing that come through our comment section on social media and I think there is a renewed appetite for stability which is an interesting place to be in after all signs were pointing to a changing government and that could still happen the polls could still be wrong but it It does look like people are trying to pick a safe bet for now.
I definitely don't want to be like in America, I think we're witnessing what's happening with Trump and I was scared that might happen here but I'm confident Australia's pretty centrist, I think.
So we might end up staying with Albo, which I'm fingers crossed about.
The pubs will still be open but like millions of other Australians, I'll be spending Saturday night watching to see if she's right.
And I'm sure we'll get a chance to watch along or hear along here on the BBC World Service.
Our reporter, Vivian Newness, in Melbourne for us.
One other thing that I wanted to mention before we went, Grand Theft Auto 6, a long -awaited sequel to the latest Grand Theft Auto canon, the release has now been postponed until May of next year.
It was due to be out later this year.
Rockstar Games say they need extra time to deliver a quality game.
It has been 12 years since the last installment incidentally.
Don't forget more online 24 hours a day, BBC .com slash news but that's it from World Business Report.
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