A warm welcome to countdown. Im anna edwards in london. Anus im manus cranny and by i suppose there is only one thing from rock my region to your chart. Anna lets talk about whats happening with the oil price. How this has rallied since february, wti oil rallying more than 70 from the almost 13year low reached in february, rallying now, really based around the canadian fires, the fires raging and although to alberta. There are other factors at play. We have seen a big shakeup at the top of the saudi Oil Administration. Is something that anyone involved in the Oil Industry Needs to be aware of as well. Manus it does indeed. That whole conviction trade about what happens with ali willimi, how much hardball they actually play at the next opec meeting . This is what we will touch on throughout the show, which is that change in power, that change in tone. Will there be a change in tone . Will they push you ran ira to get on boardn . Board . To get on anna you can see the couple of stories we have been talking about. 45. 52. Shanghai composites down. We will talk more about what is happening with the export and import story and the foreignexchange reserves as well. All of that is having an impact. Dollar yen in there. The Prime Minister talking about how japan still has tools to tackle it. Crude prices on the rise. Knocked out canada more than one Million Barrels per day. Fires are straightening threatening to spread. A provision protects companies on contracts that would go one fulfilled their control. China reported more stabilization and exports as well as a backtoback gain in foreign reserves. To 3. 2m 7 billion trillion in april. Three of the worlds most influential Bond Investors they say the u. S. Central bank is on course to raise rates. Gross, Mohamed Elerian are warning. Will appear with memories of wartime leader Winston Churchill with the speech aimed at persuading his fellow countrymen. In a speech, he will say britain has a fundamental National Interest in maintaining common purpose in europe. It requires british leadership and for britain to remain a member. Greece returning to the center stage today. The imf will assess whether the country has done enough budgettightening commitments. Throughrnment pushed tax reforms. The finance minister will review whether to release the second installment of greeces 98 billion rescue package following a sixmonth delay. Global new each day, every day, powered by 2400 journalists in 150 news bureaus globally. Back to you guys. Anna and manus. Manus thank you very much. Lets talk about the markets high. High. Kets revisit some risk. Loss. Y twoday what is driving this, the reserves or the importexport numbers . Great question. I would have to say the import numbers. Exports basically became in line with expectations. It is not just april. We are looking at 18 months that imports of actually fallen. To your other point, shortterm trade, that is a big decline at the moment. This piece of data simply reinforces that april was a bad data month. Manufacturing numbers start to the month, new trade numbers coming out. That is why you had a bigger than expected surplus. Imports excel 10 in dollar terms. 2. 3 , underwater at the moment. Asia is looking like this. Cant remember the last time it was as mixed as this. Put it all together, regional benchmark is a little bit higher. Down to the session, india, hong kong, over in japan. You guys were talking about this earlier. Dollar yen, so much weaker today. 1. 07. We heard from the finance minister and we have heard this before, that japan has the tools to intervene in the markets. The reason this particular comment is important is because he is basically the guy who decides to push that button on intervention, finance ministry. Basically, currency trading just went up at the moment. We are still weaker there. A fairly stronger dollar story this monday. The slip that we saw following the jobs data, dollar index, that seems to be in the rearview mayor at the moment when you look at how trade has panned out. A quick check out oil prices. Quite a big pop. We are getting a pop on oil prices. The dollar is relatively strong as well. 45. 50 right now im crude. Sectors,ome across flat here. Cyclicals down 1 . Iron ore, getting hammered. Down about 6 . That is roughly the daily limit. I would say sentiments are still quite shaky in asia. Anna thank you very much, david ingles in hong kong. Lets get more details of the saudi story. Saudi arabias oil minister says he will stick with a policy. The Worlds LargestEnergy Exporter continues to defend market share against higher cost of shale. Will promote was promoted to oil minister over the weekend. It is great to have our guest on the program. How will the oil policy change under the new oil minister, if at all . Think you already said it. It wont change. He issued a statement yesterday saying they are sticking to their policy of protecting market share as opposed to trying to beef up prices by cutting production themselves. He was theing head of aramco. He was saying that this is the policy. He thinks they should stick to it. He was part of the decisionmaking process to get to that policy in the first place. Manus you and i have touched on a couple of different words, continuity being one of them. People we have spoken to suggests he will play a little bit of hardball. Do they want to play harder ball at opec . Why the change . Of harderink in terms ball, we have seen them play hardball. Aimi negotiated with the venezuelans and russians on possibly freezing production, excluding iran, the deputy crown prince is seen as somebody who is close to him who then said no, iran has to be included. I think the change really is more about the changes in all saudi arabia in terms of the management of the ministries, not just the oil ministry, ill ministries, more transparency, moving the saudi economy away from oil dependency. 70 of revenues are still oilbased. More towards one that is reliant on investment income. Anna even ali alnaimi wants to move into technology that is for chemicals economy. Lets talk about the other changes the saudis have made. It is the new Central Bank Governor. What changes can we expect there . Riad the Central Bank Governor has come out with a statement. It is steady as she goes. Let what the saudi government has to deal with increasingly is the decline in reserves and the need for renewed borrowing. The plan is to go to International Markets to borrow more money. The new governor is going to be a part of that process to try and make it as smooth as possible so saudi arabia can be successful when it comes to markets, just as qatar is planning. Anna thanks for a much for joining us. Hamademade riad joining us. Great to have our next guest on the program this morning. The changes around the saudi administration, oil, the wildfires in canada, all of that putting oil at the center of things this morning. How is it impacting on the things youre looking at . Theres definitely a force of impact on oil prices. Further into the commodity efforts block, which is mainly canada, norway, and to some extent, let me take a step back and say it is not really these stories that have sent the oil price higher. Ittty much, you have shown in the chart. The market is becoming very much bearish in china. Now over the past two or three , there has been some stabilization. Anna there is the demand story. Vasileios absolutely. I think the market became essentially bearish on the demand side of things. From that perspective, now coming back to more of an equilibrium level. Manus good morning to you. Manus here. When i look at the performance in the emerging market currencies, to what extent i mean, it is about oil. You say it actually is not. There are other factors at play in canada, norway, but when i the ruble is oil. Is still inextricably linked. It is a question of whether we can sustain these kinds of levels, isnt it . Vasileios sure. I think well, if we cant sustain these levels, it will depend to a large extent on valuations. At these levels, i dont see the valuations being stretched. As a matter of fact, and in line with pretty much what we have had since the second half of 2015, the dollar went simply too far. Really extreme, overvaluation levels, mainly against the 210. Atetheless, even when i look on the whole, although it is a bit of a dangerous game to treat emerging markets as if they were seven or 10 years ago, nonetheless, when i take a birds eye view, i dont see misp ricing and fundamental misalignment. Anna stay with us. We will pick up that conversation in just a moment. John, a formeris economic adviser to saudi arabia. Great to have you on the program. We want to hear from you this morning because of the changes we have seen in saudi over recent days. What you make of the changes in terms of Oil Administration . Does this yield any change in policy from saudi arabia . First of all, it was much expected. The good thing is they appointed at the helm of the oil ministry a restructured oil ministry, which includes different portfolios. Because itellent basically tells the world that the person who has been educated and been involved in oil policy is going to be at the helm of actually creating this oil policy. There is no change whatsoever. It is going to be market share. Saudi arabia will be very keen about that. I the world says, listen, will be pushing for more production, saudi arabia will say, i will do it has well. I will meet you halfway and we will go after market share again. This is the key. Manus market share is the key issue. It is also the key issue getting the iranians on board, perhaps the number one issue . Please tell me how opec affect the oil freeze. Nobody seems to be able to give me an answer. Right now, saudi arabia is saying, listen, iran, you will pump as much as you want. We can easily produce one Million Barrels anytime you want. We are going to go for market that the current minister of petroleum has been saying. As he set correctly, vision 2030 is key. Nocrats,intment of tech people with portfolios that will be delivering this important vision if at the end of the year the vision is not delivered, i can easily see people leaving. I can easily see the shuffling of cabinet ministers. Basically, they are telling their own people that these people are accountable to us and society, and if they dont deliver, we will change them. More aboutd us a bit the vision 2030. What are the Key Developments you are looking for . Definitely, they are going to do something about fiscal discipline man raising nonoil revenues. This is happening read saudi arabia will see fees, indirect taxes, all these things that will help diversify the revenue side of saudi arabia. Of course, the goal is a lofty one. By 2020, we heard saudi arabia will raise 100 billion. This is a lofty goal to me. However, it is basically telling the world, listen. We will not just rely on oil. As we are doing this, we have appointed new people who are responsible to delivering at the same time. We will be going into tourism. We will be going into minerals. We will be doing the things that will help us leave this dependency on oil. It has been there for too long and now we will try to do it. Anna thank you for joining us. John sfakianakis. Stays with us a little longer on the program. Here are your highlights for the week ahead. An emergency meeting over austerity measures for greece. Nebraska holds its republican primary. The house of congress will vote on the impeachment of president rousseff. Andbank of england decision the inflation report. Ending the week, Consumer Debt appeared coming up next, shanghai stocks slump as the trade date disappoints. Back, anna welcome everyone. Markets in hong kong a little bit firmer this morning as they have been in japan as well. More of that in just a moment. Focus on the market is a little bit. Stocks in shanghai are headed for the biggest twoday loss in 10 weeks. Disappointing trade data. Industry producers, companies. We have stephen on the case. Take me through the numbers. It seems this has swung the equitys story. We are getting mixed single signals. Terms for experts, they are up 4. 1 , the second month in a row that exports pit picked up. That gave clues to stabilization , again following the distorted month we always get in february and march. April, up 4. 1 . That is positive, right . Not really. It is distorted by the depreciation we have seen yearoveryear in the yuan. And helpsxporters boost numbers. If you look at export figures in dollar terms, they fell 1. 8 . Both of these numbers were below expectations. On the other side, though domestic demand story, imports both in dollar and yuan terms fell more than expected. We were expecting a gain in yuan terms for her they fell for the 18th consecutive month, really showing domestic demand story is hurting continually. It is not necessarily stabilization. It is perhaps more of the same that we had feared. That is why the market was selling off of it. Anna thank you very much. Lets get back to vasileios. Lets talk about the headwinds facing china. Trade data not going down well with investors. To comments coming out of the peoples daily in china, talking about the original sin of high debt levels. The chart shows the mounting debt levels for the chinese economy. Credit blowout from 2008. What concerns you about china . Which side are you on . Vasileios i think theres definitely a lot to be said about the accumulation of credit. There is no question. We have a serious longterm structural issue as far as debt is concerned with china. Is, when is this thing going to start blowing out, and how is it going to be treated by the chinese authorities . In terms of timing, nobody really knows when it is going to happen. I do have confidence in chinese authorities and the way they have been handling things. Y seem to have quite theres a lot to be said about whether they have actually put on what has been happening. Having said that, i think the fiscal stimulus that was implemented earlier this year stabilizing the economy from a shortterm perspective. Media more longterm, i do have my worries of debt accumulation. Manus we have a job for you, the fx reserves. I love the phrase you just used, waiting for it to blow up. Ofis almost a cessation attack on the reserves at the moment. Is that temporary, in your opinion . Think that what we have been seeing over the past three or four months is some stabilization and throat slowing down in the pace of fx reserves. There is a fundamental case about china in the sense that these outflows are going to remain in the market for the year to calm. Come. It wont disappear. The question is, how will this be handled by china, and to what extent, the factors are going to play out . So far this year, the weakness in the dollar has allowed for some breathing space because it has been a larger weakness story , which has enabled them to keep the dollar china picture relatively stable, but make no mistake. The story is going to remain there. Sooner or later, we are going to have some appreciating pressures on dollar china. Anna how does this weigh on other china other countries region . This is just on todays trading session, under pressure as a result of what is happening in china. Shortterm, iin, think people can find all sorts data,ails in the especially imports from hong kong. You are clearly getting a sense of overinvoicing there. , suspect in the shortterm currencies are going to be under pressure. , thisets not forget weekend, we are getting the usual rush of important data. Retail sales in china and all that. The market is probably going to be on the sideline as well. Anna ok. Manus thank you very much for joining us. Next, we will talk about the. Oros perspective on dollar yen what does that really mean . Anna welcome back. You are watching countdown. Shot rio where shaad. The kingdom will probably continue producing crude at near record levels. Khaled alfalih took over from longstanding oil minister ali alnaimi this weekend. China has reported a modest stabilization in exports as well as a backtoback gain in foreign reserves in almost two years. It rose 7 billion to 3. 2 trillion in april. The data suggest the economy is studying amid growth. Three of the worlds most influential Bond Investors are signaling the u. S. Central bank is on course to raise Interest Rates even after poor april jobs data. Bill gross, Mohamed Elerian are thinking there could be a move in june, despite the u. S. Adding 160,000 jobs last month. That is shy of what had been projected. Era area and imf. There was a debate in the greek parliament. The government pushed through tax reforms. The finance minister will review whether to release the second installment of greeces 98 billion rescue package following a sixmonth delay. The new mayor of london has promised to work for all communities in the city, saying he celebrates denver city. The French Front National leader in donald trump there we have it. Of0 journalists working out 150 news bureaus around the world. For more on the top stories, go. Y type top back to you. Manus lets talk about crude oil. Canada. Wildfires will take out about one Million Barrels a day. What does the market make of it . Their estimating the cuts are an equivalent to about 40 of canadas oil production. We have earned some producers are declaring look what is happening to wti. I rallying for a fourth day. Holding above 45 a barrel. Below 46. The wildfires in canada are having a big impact on the price. , oil ministerhad in saudi arabia, that we just heard. Minister is likely to chase the record crude output. It really looks like these days in crude are being driven by the wildfires in canada. Looking at asian stocks, the index is pretty much unchanged. Gains in japan. Chinese stocks, looking at the shanghai composite, headed for the biggest twoday loss since the end of february, heading for their lowest close since march 11. A lot of the losses over 2. 4 at the moment. It is about the disappointing trade data we got from china over the weekend. Chinas imports of copper slumped in april from a record the previous month. This is driving the copper price to its lowest in almost a month. Copper down almost 1. 6 . Extending its worst weekly slide since november. They arest is saying in a largescale correction after the recent rally. Finally, want to show you dollar yen. The yen weakening against the dollar. The dollar posted the biggest weekly gain since november. The bloomberg dollar index is pretty much unchanged today. You a