Asia. A brandnew trading year gets underway in hong kong and china in just under 30 minutes. Singapore and taiwan just starting theirs. For a look at what its going on, here is david. David the regional benchmark is flat. If you take japan out of the equation, of course. A positive start to 2017. That being said, australia is at the highest level so far this year. Tos goes all the way back june of 2015. That market momentum seems to be filtering through into 2017. We are not looking at any sort of volume there. At this time of the trading day. 2031 is the level for the south korean benchmark. Japan is closed, but futures ares ill trading. Still trading. Singapore 120 points to the upside here,. 9 . As soon as japan is open, we will be getting a decent bench for that market as well. Three markets opening today, malaysia, taiwan, singapore. Somen have a look at how of these benchmarks are trading early on. The tie index had a very good 2016. A lot of that comes down to the apple effect, and how it trickled through to a lot of the main components of that benchmark, up 11 in 2016. Singapore was flat. Malaysia down about 3 . Toe is the initial reaction the gdp numbers. We will be talking more about those numbers later on with sophie. It really comes down to the. Hange the economy is at the mercy of these massive swings in global trade. Next, iat currencies just want to point out oil for you. 54 in west texas. Keep your eye on that level. Unchanged. 5 . We go, poin lets call this flat really, 698. I will just rounded up round it up. Rishaad thanks. News get to the first word. Here is heidi. Pictures have emerged of the istanbul nightclub moments before a gun man killed 39 people celebrating new years eve. Clubttack at the famous was on the waterfront. The killer escaped and his identity was either unknown or has not been released. Tos shows turkeys inability keep the violence in syria from crossing its border. Kim jongun says north korea is closing in on the launch of an enter intercontinental missile. Says theseoul, korea north shows no signs of a launch. Donald trump just tweeted that a north Korean Nuclear weapon wont happen. Selling a 20 in a Shanghai Commercial bank, the australian lenders says half of the stake is being bought by chinas cause go shipping. Taking a look at how shares have been trading, higher by one point 7 . Ne Deutsche Banks former ceo is restarting his career at a much smaller firm. He is joining as president , help oversee ho expansion. Intolped build deutsche europes biggest Security Firm in decades before her stepping down in 2016 with mounting legal beforetory stepping down in 2016 with mounting legal and regulatory problems. This is bloomberg. Rishaad thanks, heidi. The economy expanding more than anticipated in the Fourth Quarter and services rebounding. Tell us what happened. Take us through the numbers. 2016, gdp grew one point 8 , the fastest pace in over three years, driven by a rebound in manufacturing and services in the Fourth Quarter. On aw gdp growth 9. 4 quarterly basis, a reversal of we saw inction of 2 the previous three months. Earliere ministrys range for growth was 1. 1 1 . Even the most optimistic forecast of economists polled by bloomberg was exceeded. We will be getting december pmi at 9 00 p. M. The estimate there is 50. 1. Not necessarily over here. The Prime Minister in his new years address said the government is keeping a close eye on the labor market. Singapores policy makers are also looking for avenues of growth. Said ame minister i committee will share recommendations for longer Growth Strategy to maintain competitiveness. It comes to designing how singapore is going to continue, there is growth momentum. Rishaad it was not the only data out of singapore today, was it . We also got home prices from the urban Redevelopment Authority. Prices fell. 4 in the Fourth Quarter. This is a softer drop than the 1. 5 decline that we saw in the previous three months. That was the biggest quarterly drop since 2009. Big picture, private home prices fell 3 in 2015, compared to a 3. 7 drop in 2015. Are expected to further pressure prices and rents in 2017. The picture we have been seeing propertyhe weaker market has fed into softer inflation. Chinas official indicates strength on the back of sentiment. Our chief asia correspondent joins me now. What does that tell us . Is a reasonably bright spot. Policymakers are exactly where they want to be. Growth is well on track. The pickup in prices is flowing through and that has helped confidence. Manufacturers are going to have the confidence to step back and initiate reforms. The economy is, in a relatively sweet spot. That does not mean there are not challenges ahead and that reforms are not needed. Rishaad looking at this, you can say we have problems with debt and the housing market. Certainly have. Even if they want to maintain housing prices, there is the Multiplier Effect on construction and the wider economy. The same goes in other areas. You cant go to hard on the. Hakeup certainly, no shortage of challenges ahead. Debate what about the over the growth target . Being open to slow or growth if it means reining in excess credit and debt. Dea an adviser said china should lower its growth target. Nowe is certainly a view that the growth target is a little outdated, and if china were to do more to be more sustainable and less reliant on cheap credit, the economy would be in a better place. Lets be clear. Even though there is some debate , we seem to be a long way from growth out right. Rishaad thank you. How fukushima is using wine to lure tourists back to the region. Rishaad we are just opening the trading day in singapore. That is the scene at the moment, relatively flat. No trading today. It is a public holiday. Up the the move cost the index is on the move up kospi index is on the move up. Samsung has urged the company to learn from costly failures like last years flammable note which cost samsung more than 7 billion and pushed smartphone profits to a record low in the third quarter. Three Car Companies have been fined after an investigation found a fabricated emissions s. St increasedare facing to scrutiny following all of these scandals. South koreas biggest carmaker is protecting sales will jump filings. According to had 8. 2 5 million 2016 and isn planning 10 new models and to revamp their existing models. The u. K. Gets a new years present, postponing the price hikes scheduled in the next two weeks. Tesla is raising prices in the u. K. Back to the asian markets and opportunities for the year ahead. Of asia equityd and credit at ubs management. He is in singapore. Lets start with the data we had over the weekend. Tell us what that tells us about the state of play for the chinese economy. It is pretty much what we expected, not necessarily pointing to an excel a ration. We are still seeing a slight deceleration on the gdp acceleration. We are still seeing a slight deceleration on the gdp side. Things are getting pulled out a little bit. The rest is very stable. Overall, the data is encouraging. Especially Service Industries are doing fairly well. Sometimes a bit overlooked in china. One thing we are waiting for axt week that i think will be key piece of information for equity holders in the stock market is the ppi index. We expect another increase or acceleration of the increase as in thet of consolidation sector. This is probably the most positive piece we are looking for in terms of earnings acceleration for china. We think it is going to be a fairly constructive start of the already on theen weekend. And will continue to be next week. Rishaad what does this mean when it comes to the ppi side of things . Four months of deflation. Aboutk we will just t get the yuan fixed. There we have it. I dont have it at the moment. Will the pbc be injecting more money into the system, providing more liquidity with reverse rebates . We have the yuan reference right. 6. 9498. Im not sure how that compares. Still around 6. 95. We had reports over the weekend that we have further moves in strengthening capital controls. How does this all tiein together . Were looking at two thanks. Things. One is the composition of the basket, which is changing a little bit. The other is domestic sectors. In terms of domestic sectors, we will still see outflows. I think we will see more evidence of reserve numbers coming out. Looking at the basket, i think it is an interesting determining factor for the outlook for the next couple of months all the way through the year end. We are looking at about a seven Exchange Rate by the year end. Most of the incremental weakness we still expect over the next couple of months, really. The reason we are seeing that is because we arguably also have a contentious view on major currencies. Things like the euro and the yen, for example. When we think the dollar is about to flatten up or that we need to retreat against the euro or the end, thats a substantial part of the currency yen, thats a substantial part of the currency basket. We will probably see less pressure on the euroyen than the chineseyen. In the currency basket, they have shown in the past that they dont always do that. They allow for a little bit of appreciation to factor in. Then we get a little bit more, very modest weakening over the next 36 month, and then flat from there. Rishaad this is the weakest the one has been since december 20. We had a guest on earlier who had a pretty lent blunt excess men blunt assessment of where he expects it to go now. Possibly before the lunar chinese new year, 7. 3 by the end of the year. The key thing is we expect ongoing, gradual depreciation of the currency. The key word is orderly. This is probably the only policy the pbs he can use to effectively stabilize the chinese economy and help grow the underlying stability p to effectively stabilize the chinese economy and help grow the underlying pbc can use to effectively stabilize the chinese economy and grow the underlying economy. This is really against the basket, which includes other currencies than the dollar here in asia as well as europe. If you factor in the contentious view that those currencies as far as asia is concerned no longer depreciated substantially against the u. S. Dollar and currencies such as the yuan and in doubleould be digits until the end of the year and rebound against the u. S. Dollar, then you arrive at different results. We will be studying the pressure on the yuan. Rishaad great talking to you. Have a happy new year. Now, there will be a fallout from the phone call by donald trump. That continues to swirl around china and beijing. Did it cross the line . We had life to taipei. Head live to taipei. Behind a chinese conglomerate is a friendship that has lasted 30 years. As they told heidi, the philosophy behind their business is the same today as when they started. To improve your way of living in a contemporary world, the only way is to learn how to improve the lives of others, and provide services for others. Our initial aspirations for a startup or to help the livelihood of our own families. Continued, it became clear that if you want to achieve a goal, you have to learn to help others improve their lives, and help customers do the right thing. The logic of these two things is connected. Do you look back over the time you spent together, the financial crisis, the Regulatory Political upheavals in china, what has been the biggest challenge . We having countered some problems in business development, but i think this can help us grow. Just as a person comes across problems as they grow up. The benefit for us is because we started this business as a team. When we encounter problems, we can quickly recognize them and work as one to find answers accordingly. It always feels like we do have our challenges, but they are not ones to give us too much pressure. They are ones that can be solved. Today, we are feeling the changes within the entire industry. If you look at the mobile internet, no biz the internet of things and how it might change is theitional next up internet of things and how it might change up the traditional industry. For us, it is important to completely integrate with the internet of things and the future of Artificial Intelligence and find a way of surviving. I think this is very challenging. Who is the boss . Who makes the ultimate decision . [laughter] you mean i make the decisions . [laughter] well, that is inevitable. You must have someone making the final call. But we have never had a socalled one man, one vote kind of thing. Nor was there ever a power play over who has more shares. I dont think thats the best way to resolve issues. The best way is sufficient communication. , sometimes decisionmaking isnt about right or wrong. If every decision were about that, decisionmaking wouldnt be so difficult. You started as friends. Do you still have time to do what friends do, have a beer, have a chat . Have a reallywe strong chemistry between us because it has already been some 20 odd years, 30 if you include our school days. It is a camaraderie. Although we dont see each other that often, we have phone meetings every day. Our partnership is the same. Initially, friendship bound us together. We were drink together, talked together. Men have that kind of relationship. Sometimes this partnership becomes amelia, like something in your blood. What milestones are somethingmilial, like in your blood. What milestones are you setting for the next 5, 10 years . Continue to work toward a worldclass investment group, build a wealthhealthhappiness ecosystem. Those are the targets. Rishaad the three founders speaking to my colleague. Australia, korean, singapore looking like this. Coming out with Growth Numbers better than expected. Still, investors are unimpressed and markets are putting much flat. Coming up, looking at oil prices and supply cuts. Not every producer will comply, it is feared. With the xfinity tv app, anything with a screen is a tv. Stream 130 live channels. Plus 40,000 on demand tv shows and movies, all on the go. You can even download from your x1 dvr and watch it offline. Only xfinity gives you more to stream to any screen. Download the xfinity tv app today. Ive spent my life planting a sizesix, nonslip shoe into that door. On this side, i want my customers to relax and enjoy themselves. But these days its phones before forks. They want wifi out here. But behind that door, i need a private connection for my business. Wifi pro from comcast business. Public wifi for your customers. Private wifi for your business. Strong and secure. Good for a door. And a network. Comcast business. Built for security. Built for business. We are having a look at the market action. We had that are than expected growth figures out of singapore. We have the australia top performer in the absence of japanese trading, the bank holiday there in tokyo. Also levels we have not seen ince the accident asx 2015. That was a gain to start of 2017. China,u had data out of data coming out of china 15 minutes or now. Seeing sentiment across markets. It is still very quiet out there. All things being equal, volumes are quite thin. Australia has been up for joined half hours and volumes at 40 lighter. We will take 58 points. We are seeing a little bit of weakness across southeast asia. Singapore with the gdp numbers out and a stellar 2016. 92. 36. Ex index at 9246. Still the worst performing market in 2016 down 13 depending on which benchmark you look at. The hang seng index just below 22,000. Not a lot of action. 9400 and philippines stock index startpening up flat to off this year. Lets have a look at some other things. Had 695 on the renminbi. Lets focus on the ring bit death ringgit start off this year. Ringgit. If you look at the spectrum today you are looking at Southeast Asian currencies mostly on the back foot. The kiwi dollar also on the way up. The dollaryen stronger against lower one 1 5 of 1 . Aret of sector groups falling. You have new stories out there and the casinos. Some of these names, we will talk more about this in a moment but a nice pop thereof 4 . Theo sell its stake real estate for about 4 billion. Mrs. On the back of the latest this is on the back of the latest. Lets have a look at the line chart. Chart, a fiveyear youre on your change a percent was the latest read. Limbo. S a time of this is where we are at the moment. Were seeing positive change in the amounts, that is the way to look at that. Lets get you up to speed with some of the first word headlines. Singapores economy extended more than expected in the Fourth Quarter although it is still growing at the slowest pace in asia. The first Major Economic data of twice 17 showed annualized growth of 9. 1 against estimates of 4 . The city States Government and economy has been struggling in the face of soft global trade andthe city States Government ad economy has been weak energy pr. Chinas latest official pmi data strongte indicate a and for 2016 with the economy stabilizing. The factory index was at 51. 4 in december near a post2012 five. Economists had expected a reading of 51. 5. Indicating a pickup in inflation expectations. Pmi was 54. 5, slightly down on november. An adviser to the pboc said china should set a more flexible Economic Growth target for 2017 to allow policymakers to ramp up reforms. Economist and economist proposes a target range of 6 to 7 . He says the longterm objective of 6. 5 percent growth yearly is an average rate and work needs to be done to reduce the number of Zombie Companies in the economy. By getting parts of northern china forecast to last until wednesday. Meteorological center extended and orange alert. Fell. Eturned as night nine provinces across the north and east are expected to be affected for at least the next two days. Visibility in some parts may be less than 50 meters. Global news 24 hours a day, powered by more than 2600 journalists and analysts in more than 120 countries. This is lumbered. Rishaad thanks for that. Lets look at what is going on with the oil price trading. Affect cuts going to ,pec and independent producers it should give us an indication of this if this deal will be respected and obeyed. The focus is on those cuts. News. Will get incremental kuwait has said they have cut 130,000 barrels a day from their output. We will see that move over the month before we get a better picture toward the end of the month around early february. Rishaad we get a better picture of what th