It is countdown. Anna lets get to caroline hyde. She has the details for the creditagricole numbers. Caroline this company has desperately been trying to restructure itself. O in place. New ce in large part, a majority is owned by regional banks. It does own stakes in regional banks itself. They have agreed to sell back these stakes and regional banks. They will finance at themselves and lend money to those regional banks to the tune of 11 billion euros. They are trying to give all caps dividends back to their investor base. The take away here is they are threeg back stakes for regional banks. They will be boosting their capital and your one ratio to ratio and their teir one to 11 . They are coming in 800 Million Euros better than what was expected. Their profit is at 1 5 of where it was last year. They are promising all Cash Dividends as soon as 2016 and they are raising their own dividends this year to . 60 per share. They are boosting their capital strength and also managing to give money back to the investor base. Thank you very much, caroline hyde. Do you have some headlines, manus . 44us; they will have a dividend. They sold a part of the company. They reported a fourthquarter profit of 272 Million Euros. They were looking for fourthquarter profit numbers in the region of 320 Million Euros. Fourthquarter profits were 272 Million Euros. There is a final dividend of . 44 a share. Of course, we are going to be focused on the commodity market and the oil market. Anna we speak with management about this. The government sold part of it back to the market but the government does still own a large portion of this. To abngoing to speak amro ceo right here on countdown. It was a poster child for the economic crisis. That was right at the height of the crisis. It was just before bed. Last that was freds triumphant moment. Or in his mind, it was a triumphant moment for the taxpayer. Time for a little bit foin the chinese market. Anna we have heard quite a lot about china. They are trying to boost their economy. Just yesterday we were talking about how they are changing the amount of money banks need to satisfy to cover loans. There is not a lot of talk about increasing local infrastructure. Some Global Voices are raising doubts of the sustainability of the lending surge we have seen. S p is raising concerns about the level of indebtedness, saying this could weigh on the countrys debt rating. Are they being booked in the right place . Us that is all about the obesitpacity of it. Of in 2015 in terms corporate household that. Household debt. It is about this, it is about the currency. We have had the biggest repricing in the yuan. We willn towards g20, try to get a little bit of stability into the currency. There is concern about the capital outflows. There is concern about depreciation expectations. They could accelerate because of the outflow. All eyes are on the yuan currency. Anna lets get to the Bloomberg Business flash. Nejra brent crude has risen before a meeting between iraq and iran. It comes after saudi arabia and russia agree to freeze production yesterday. It is called the beginning of a process. The Iraq Oil Minister will me his venezuelan counterpart. Cause for greater regulation of u. S. Banks. The man who led the 2008 bank will a program also proposed the idea of breaking them up to protect the economy from another financial crisis. Like significant progress has been made to strengthen the financial system, but i dont think it went far enough. The biggest banks continue to post an ongoing large risk to our economy. Anna David Cameron has edged closer to securing an overhaul of the terms of britains membership to the European Union. He is due in brussels tomorrow for the second time in 48 hours. He won the backing of angela merkel. Eus rotatingthe presidency also agreed that was a good basis for a deal. Donald trump will not be elected president. They expect the u. S. To lead the world. I continue to believe mr. Trump will not be president. The reason is because i have a lot of faith in the american people. And i think they recognize that being president is a serious job. Hosting a talk show for a reality show. Its not promotion. Its not marketing. Its hard. News, 24 hours a day, powered by our 2400 journalists in over 150 news bureaus around the world. 30 much. Ank you take us through some of these moves. There seems to be a push and pull in terms of the chinese story. Nejra good morning to you, manus. We have seen generally asian markets today is nothing that two day rally. We have been seeing quite a bit of fluctuations on the china market in late trade. The shanghai market is up by 3 4 of 1 . The yuan has weakened by the most in a month. The yen is surging in emerging markets. Outindex had been in and of the balclack today. We are snapping that really strong rally that we have seen. The index had its best two day gains since 2008. Ging and export companies are coming under pressure. Australia and korea are also closing lower. I will show you some of the main stocks we have been watching, similar to what you will see in europe. We have seen quite a bit of focus on the energy sector. The Oil Producers are coming under pressure. Not as much pressure as petroleum, though. They are posting a 99 drop in four year profits. Softbanks closing higher by 6 . Its market value has risen as much as 16 billion earlier this week. Dominos pizza in australia is coming through with a record firsthalf profits, sending its share price is higher as well. It has been once again, about this yen resurgence. We have seen the yen move higher come up by 1 2 of 1 against the dollar. Back to you. Anna thank you very much. Downside risks mount for the chinese economy. Aging is looking to show it is up for the challenge. Chinas largest economic planning bodies are considering fresh stimulus measures. Manus malcom scott has more on this. Talk this through some of the new measures. Are we channeling 2009 . That is the question in terms of the next big stimulus package. Lcom they are doing it in slightly different ways. This infrastructure bond package , they are looking to free up 400 billion yuan. If you translate that to 400 billion for the full year, that would come out at 1. 6 trillion yuan. That is double the 800 billion made last year. Of course, that is in china, where a lot of the investing spending demand comes from. Local governments that led the response to the 20082009 global recession. That is where the money was spent and that is where the debt climbed. This time they are doing it through bonds, rather than through banks. Speaking of banks. We had the huge surge with saw yesterday. We saw some of that stimulus coming to the banking channel as well. Speaking of banks, there have been discussions around freeing up the ratio, or the amount of funds, they need to set aside against their loans. They should be setting aside about 150 . That could become back to 120 so that banks can lend ore. There are increasing efforts to get the economy humming again. Anna we talked about some of those over the last 24 hours and indeed, we have seen some international reaction. What about the timing of these steps . There has been interesting. We have a new fiveyear plan coming. Is it next month . They want to be more transparent, ahead of that though, there could be criticism. Malcom exactly right. They have come back from the Chinese New Year holiday with this renewed vigor that they must get the word out. We had a long interview in local media, speaking about the local currency. The premier came through with some comments in local media yesterday. All of this is coming to ahead of the g 20 meeting at the end of this month. At the start of next month, we have the National Peoples congress, where they have plans for 2016. But also, the next five years are unveiled. Manus think you very much, malcom scott. All of this comes as the troubled that passes the u. S. As a class, trickling u. S. Asset financialggering a crisis. The debt problem in china has already reached for portions of the u. S. Debacle. Dont worry. Chinese authorities are on the case. Lets see if we have a man in the studio who believes that or not. Bill, good to see you this morning. When you hear lines like dont worry, the chinese authorities are on the case, does this will be with confidence . Bill everyone is talking about the next crisis in china and they are absolutely right. But your guys are right. The chinese authorities will cope with it. It will be another problem and they will largely, i believe, internalize it. There are risks that will cause contagion concerns. We will get more and more of oh, no. China is terrible. However, there is a longterm implication. What we have seen with all of the chinese spending over the last 10 years, and especially still going on as we see in these numbers, is china has basically built everything for the next 50 years. Which means, if people are thinking that china is suddenly going to turn around and Start Building on the scale it was and generate the kind of commodity growth we were expecting, that is simply not going to happen. That is a negative aspect. China is never going to be the driver of growth it once was, but i would not panic so much about the shortterm when angela and monetary implications of the looming bank crisis. Manus why are you not concerned about that . Bill relatively concerned, manus. It will trigger contagion and the obvious fears, that i believe it will be internalized. Manus lets take it to markets, then. Where will that manifestation most impact . In terms of where we are with the loan level. The default level rose by 50 . Where will it manifest itself . Bmoney going into bonds . Give me your perspective in terms of where the markets will react . Bill as i have said already, it will be an internalized problem and it will create difficulties for chinese growth. End this concept that china is the driver of global growth. We will focus global expectations away from china. We will be looking at other global economies, as always happens in situations like this. Everybody is talking about india again. It is an up and down the economy. The effects of this looming financial crisis will be felt primarily on the drivers of chinese growth. That is what will panic some people in the Global Markets and yes, it will result in a weaker yuan. Once we get past this, people will put it into the bucket of china in transition. Story ish of that going to be a china that is not growing as fast as we all expect. It will not be driving global economies. It will become something more of an economic backwater longterm. Anna you said in your notes that china has been around for a long time. Bill it has been around for an awfully long time. Anna when you hear this zbanks when commer they say they are not sure where and therefore,re they dont have to provision them. We dont have the transparency we want around the Banking Sector. Bill i absolutely agree with analysis like that. I am quite sure there has been massive fraud. I am quite sure that has been a massive amount of money squandered on building bridges to nowhere and all of the classic kind of stuff that goes into economies where they are desperately trying to show that they are growing. Yes, it is all happening, but how big an issue will it be for the rest of the Global Economy . Long term, it is a chinese problem. Anna thank you very much. Bill blain stays with us. We will get the Industrial Production numbers out of the u. S. Will release minutes from its january meeting. Nejra coming up next, turning to tehran. The focus shifts to iran. The oil minister talks to iraq and venezuela. Anna welcome back. This is countdown. Date with what is happening in the oil markets. Manus brent crude has risen as iraq and iran get together in tehran later today. This comes after saudi arabia and russia agree to freeze reduction. Anna moves that the Saudi Oil Minister described as the beginning of a process. Lets get the rest from our reporter elliott. Certainly, you would not think that the iranians would be too keen. They still want their market back. Elliott i think you have hit the nail on the head. Iraq is already pumping 4. 3 billion barrels a day. You would think they are the more likely to be persuaded of the virtues of this accord reached yesterday to freeze out but at current levels. The iranians are much more tricky. Intoare trying to get back the market and boost production by one Million Barrels a day. They just had sanctions lifted. Why would they want to sell sanction themselves right after they had International Sanctions lifted . Manus the debate is this. Russia and saudi arabia are capping production, possibly. With this boost oil prices, though . ,lliott Goldman Sachs says no. Reached,n accord is that is not a guarantee, given what has happened in the past with these kind of agreements. Even if an agreement is honored, it is unlikely to help with oil production. You still have to supply glut. That is not going to help inventories come down. And until they do come down, that is not going to help prices. Even if prices were to rise, you are going to have fra ckers in the United States hurting right now boosting production. That will drive the prices back down again. I dont think this will work out as the venezuelans hope that it does. Anna thank you very much, elliott. Bill blain is still with us. Bill, to what extent is oiled the tail wagging the entire market . Bill you to me why Higher Oil Prices are good for stocks. Higher oil prices means higher cost reduction. The entire market thinks Oil Prices Going higher is a good thing. Manus do you not think it is a good thing . It reduces the potential for the flood and reinforces some dividends. It reduces banksdefaults. You can pay off a little bit of that debt. Bill these are my skeptical eyebrows, there. Very skeptical. Anna they are very raised. Bill if we had a Global Economy with lower Interest Rates and lower cost production, like costs,lemenwer employment that should be increasing growth, but it is not. Growth. Ot all oil stops this is new growth. Norm. S ththis is the new bill the issue with the Global Economy rate is zero Interest Rates, negative Interest Rates, and qe. That is why the market is reacting in such a particular way to Higher Oil Prices. This oil price agreement, again the skeptical eyebrows manus there is a lot of skepticism around this morning. Bill i think saudi arabia desperately needs dollars. Lets just up that production level a little bit. Russia desperately needs dollars. Because it is winter, russia cant actually slow down the pipelines. If it does, they would freeze. And venezuela is sitting there saying, please, give me a little before i go bust. Anna you dont sound convinced by the phrasing. By the freezing. Bnill as i said, skeptical eyebrows. Manus you will see in 10 seconds. Ofl he rejoined pictures abn amro earlier, the stock foo tage. That was actually from 2006. Anna we will have a few words. The plane stays with us, whether we want him to or not. Bill blain stays with us, whether we want him to or not. In london. Here lets get to bloomberg first were news. Nejra china is ramping up spending and considering new measures to extend bank lending. There is concern regarding the sustainability of the country. There is a meeting in tehran later. They comes after saudi arabia and russia agreed to freeze production yesterday. The Saudi Oil Minister described this as the beginning of the process. President Neel Kashkari has called for greater regulations of u. S. Banks. He also floated the idea of breaking that up to protect the economy from another financial crisis. Significant progress has been made to strengthen the financial system, that i believe it did not go far enough. I believe the biggest thanks are still too big to fail and continue to impose an ongoing risk to our economy. Is due inid cameron brussels tomorrow for the second time in 48 hours. He won the backing of german chancellor, angela merkel. Rotatingr of the eus currency says this was a good basis for a deal. President Barack Obama Says donald trump wont be elected president. He says the Republican Primary Campaign has alarmed foreign audiences who expect the u. S. To lead the world. President obama trump will not be president. I have a lot of faith in the american people. I think they recognize that being president is a serious job. Hosting a talk show, or a reality show. Its not promotion. Its not marketing. Its hard. Nejra global news, 24 hours a day powered by our 2400 journalists in more than 150 news bureaus around the world. Anna lets get an update on what is happening in the markets with caroline hyde. Caroline we have seen risk aversion creep back into asian trading. The energy is faring the brunt of the selloff. This shows where the Industry Groups are hit the worst. Off by 2. 6 . Nergy healthcare materials are also faring pretty poorly. This is a downside because of concerns when it comes to oil. Lets focus on oil. Will the freeze work when we have it near record levels . This really shows what has been happening because this is opec output. Look, it is near record highs at the moment. Opec is producing record highs, as well as russia. To u. S. Is bringing in shale the equation. And then they are going to freeze at this level . A key concernis that this agreement does not go far enough. This is what Goldman Sachs has been saying. They said, this will have little impact. A great way to really focus in at the moment regarding what is happening with oil and how much it it takes what is happening with the rest of the market. Manus this is quite a dramatic move in china in terms of the yuan caroline a correlation between what is happening in the