More pro growth policy. Deflation over weak demand. And bah humbug. The uk retailers are disappointing sales sent morse onnis and tesco sales down to the bottom of the stoxx 600. Announcer youre watching worldwide exchange, bringing you Business News from around the globe. Hello. Very warm welcome to todays edition of worldwide exchange. Plenty to get through. Its dday for some of southeast asias emerging markets as they size up the u. S. Quantitative easing. Well get the latest from singapore in around 15 minutes. Well be speaking to the ceo of exxon about how shale is changing the worlds biggest economy. After months in the shadows, Edward Snowden is expected to give testimony to the European Parliament. Thats around 40 minutes time. And the latest fomc minutes have provided some insight into the feds strategy for tapering. Well analyze all those details starting at 11 30 cet. If thats not enough, as the big freeze finally begins to thaw, well look at the economic impact. Its only starting to be realized what damage has been done by the polar voe text in america at 11 45 cet. If you have any thoughts, comments, questions, emails them to us, world would it cnbc. Com. That bit there. First, the u. S. Federal reserve is going to proceed cautiously with its tapering of asset purchases. Some members expressed concern the tightening may be interpreted as a signal the central bank would taper quicker than initially expected. Most members suggested theres no set time scale for scaling back the program. The majority in the media expect to keep its main rate low. Can mario draghi ignore the back drop of slowing inflation . Our team is located outside the European Headquarters in frankfurt and they join us now. Annette and geoff are both with us. Welcome to you both. Clearly, were not worried about deflationary threats. Is that the message, geoff . Well, i think it will be a reiteration of a line given back in an interview in december where for the time being, i think mr. Draghi will, yes, reiterate that this isnt a major concern at this stage. We will keep an eye on it. And, of course, a reiteration of we have plenty of tools in the box still and we will do whatever it takes. Yeah. He will most likely say that Inflation Expectations are firmly anchored. Thats the term he always used. And, of course, we still need to wait because december inflation was expected to be to come in at a very low level. So the key issue now Going Forward will be how is inflation going to develop during the next couple of months. Lets bring in tolsten pollet on that. Tolsten is a key economic analyst. How much of an issue will this be . I think the issue of inflation or deflation is a key element in policy making these days. There are a lot of economists and policymakers that have become concerned about the risks of deflation. And, of course, there is a strong incentive now for central banks, in particular the European Central bank to make use of this unfavorable outlook for pushing ahead with further easing policy. So i would imagine that this is an issue that will be addressed at this press conference. But will he do any more than verbally intervene, shall we say . Is there any other plan that will be unveiled here . Yeah, perhaps. I still think theres an easing bias in the ecb governing counsel. Whether it will be the rate will be cut today or in february, i dont know. But further easing policies will be implemented. And this may include purchases of bonds or purchases of bank credit portfolios in order to provide further stimulus in the area. Do you think they are going to wait until the Constitutional Court in germany is informing us about their opinion on the omt . With the, this is still an issue which hasnt been settled, youre absolutely right. But i would say in view of further deflation fears, i think the ecb clearly has the room for taking action. Yeah, but probably at the same time they get a lot of discontent from politicians like mr. Schroyer was saying yesterday. Isnt that the case . You see, we live in the paper money world where you always have boom and busts. Now the euro area is sill in a kind of bust episode. And when you look at farms and italy, the situation is not really a situation in which you could say the economy is really recovering. I would say problems are building up and problems can become very severe. And once the unemployment, for instance, Unemployment Rate keeps up, goes up further, i think there is the willingness among politicians in europe to save the euro project, there by allowing the European Central bank to take further action of unconditional policy. By and large, the economies have been revising their growth expectations for the world as a whole and to some extent the eurozone. Is there any reason, as far as your analysis is concerned, to be more pessimistic about the outlook . Yeah. I think in the coming quarters, you will see more positive Economic Data in the euro area, but also in other major currency areas. The problem is, however, that this recovery is underpinned by extremely low Interest Rates. And the risk that further malinvestment is building up is clearly dishonorable, i would say. And we have seen it before. We have with monetary policies pursuing low Interest Rate policies, boom and bust cycle. Now we are seeing a slight recovery, but at the risk there that sooner or later the recovery will end in another bust. Thank you so much for coming down to us outside the ecb. And, ross, well send it back to you for the time being as we wait and watch the mr. Draghis next move on rate policy. Yes. Stay warm and dry, if you possibly can, as well. Thank you both. Plenty more from geoff and annette. Meanwhile, are the days bank of England Forward guidance numbers . Mark carney is in focus ahead of its meeting today with many analyst he now tipping the bank of england to tweet the unemployment threshold. Helia is outside the bank of england and joins us now. Now, interesting, the fed last night from their minutes did discuss lowering their threshold. I wonder whats going on in the building behind you, helia. Morning, ross. Absolutely all about what happens in 2014 with forward guidan guidance. Will it be tweaked . Will it be somehow swept under the carpet and rates kept low despite meeting the threshold . Remember when mark carney came into power, unemployment in the uk was 7. 8 . And at that point, the bank of england behind me was talking about it coming down to 7 way at the end of 2016. Of course, a lot has changed since them. Now economists are predicting that, as you said, unemployment is currently at 7. 6 of , but expect it to drop rapidly. It will hit 7 by the middle of this year. What will the bank do . Today theyre going to have to start facing up to that. We have a recovering economy in the uk, unemployment falling. I asked the kwfr a couple of months ago would he tweak that threshold . Would he bring it down to 6. 5 or even 6 . He didnt deny it. He said it wasnt necessarily off the card and they would have to look at every position at the time. Remember, there is political will to keep rates low. We have the bank of England Credit survey out yesterday talking about Credit Conditions being very good, the best for mortgages and the best for lending even during the p precrisis time. Even though net lending is down. Part of that reason is for Interest Rates being low. So i think there is political will to keep those Interest Rates low. Another thing to watch out for is i guess what we see in the minutes later this month. In the last mpc meeting, we saw that the committee was concerned about sterling strength. And remember, the uk government is really trying for this rebalancing of the economy. We havent seen that so far, but there will be one eye politically on what uk exports are doing and sterling strength will have an impact on that. Yes. There was a very good article this week that said not to worry about sterling strap. I cant remember who wrote it, but it was terribly good. Im sure it was. No doubt. Well discuss that a little later when you come back in from the cold. So should the bank of england head to Forward Guidance or not . For more on the communication conundrum, head to cnbc. Com. We also have coverage of the ecb bank of england rate decisions. That kicks off at 12 00 london time and we will have a special twohour program. Julia will be joining me for that later today. Whats happening with asset prices ahead of that . We have a little higher on the Dow Jones Stoxx 600. Advancers outpacing decliners by a ratio of 6 to 4. Not quite that. You can see the move on the stoxx 600, not very much. 0. 08 . The uk has been dominated by numbers out from the retailers. Nevertheless, it is up around 10 points after being down 33 points. Still pretty flat so far this year. Xetra dax is up 0. 2 . Flat on the cac 40. The ftse mib is up 0. 3 . Lets kick off with tesco, first of all. Its reported 2. 4 drop in its Christmas Period sales. Thats towards the low end of analyst forecasts. Outside of britain, the worlds third biggest retailer says sales improved in europe, but remains difficult in asia. Morse yop, taking a big hit. They had a 5. 6 of drop excludeing fuel in its holiday sales. The firm blaming heavy discounting by rivals. Sainsbury is not faring any better. Its currently off 2 a day after cutting its full year forecast and warning over cautious spending, despite reported Quarterly Sales growth of 2 . Comparable sales dipping. Food doing fairly well, though. But what is clear, this has perhaps been the toughest quarter general ly for retailin. At 10 30, well be taking a closer look of the sector. So thats the retailers in the uk. Lets move on and show you where we stand with bond rates. Treasury yields back towards the 3 mark. Adp yesterday was the best in 13 months. We had a higher yield, as well, and a tenyear auction and weve seen twoyear bills up to a fourmonth high, as well. Keep our eyes on gilt yields. 2. 98 . Tenyear bund yield, 1. 9 . On the currency markets, the dollar index has been up at a sevenweek high today. Euro dollar yesterday hit a onemonth low. Were back to this 1. 36 mark. Weve been over here hovering around 105 for the dollar yen. Aussie back down to 0. 8877. And sterling, just above 1. 64, as well. Now, thats here in europe. Price pressure meanwhile in china eased in december. Consumer inflation grew 2. 5 last month. Thats down from the previous month, 3 . Cpi for 2013 at 2. 6 , which is well below the governments target of 3. 5 , leaving room for the government to push ahead with reforms without worrying about run away prices. But in a sign of persistent weak demand, prices at the factory level eases down for a 22nd straight month, down 1. 4 . How has all of that fed into asian asset prices . Li sixuan has the data out of singapore. Hi, ross. You mentioned about the inflation data. On the whole, asian markets came under pressure ahead of fridays u. S. Jobs data. Japans nikkei 225 lost 1. 5 and saw some profit taking in recent outperformers such as nintendo. Over in china, the inflation data came in at a sevenmonth low giving markets a short lift boost and china markets slipped further. The shanghai deposit ended down by 0. 8 . Do note that eight companies are set to take their ipo subscriptions this week, raising concerns over shares and this brokerage stocks lower. Meanwhile, the nasdaq is out. China exports was able to hold on to its early gains, ending down by over 2 the . This after yesterdays over 3 jump. And over in seoul, the bj kept rates steady, but the kospi still lost 0. 7 after invefrters got spooked, especially for some chemical stocks. But australias asx 200 ended higher by 0. 2 . Jaufr shore oils, limit up by 10 after expecting its 2013 profit to have jumped 220 and thats significa aanwhile, chind 5 today. Other oil stocks made a strong rally. Sixuan, thank you. Catch you a little later. Norway is now a land of millionaires, apparently. And high oil and gas prices helped push the company higher. Its a fraction more than 1 is million times the countrys population, making every system a theoretical millionaire. Now, to find out how the windfall is going to be spent, just a clue, norwegians wont be able to splash the cash personally. Head to cnbc. Com for that. Follow us on twitter, cnbcworld. Plenty more on that. Indonesian central bank has come out and left rates unchanged, as well, at 7. 5 . Theyre apparently confident that the inflation will be in the 3. 5 to 5. 5 range in 2014 and 2013 Economic Growth around 5. 7 . And in 2014, that is likely at the lower end of their 5. 8, 6 of. 2 growth rate. Were going to get more on this Central Bank Decision coming up. Also, south koreas central bank has held Interest Rates, as well, despite a stronger currency. Were going to dig into all those decisions when we come back. Welcome back. How is everything . Theres nothing like being your own boss and my customers are really liking your flat rate shipping. Fedex one rate. Really makes my life easier. Maybe a promotion is in order. Good news. I got a new title. And a raise . Management couldnt make that happen. [ male announcer ] introducing fedex one rate. Simple, flat rate shipping with the reliability of fedex. We just heard from the bank of indonesia. They have left rates steady. Joining us is jeff ping in singapore. Lets kick off with this indonesian move. Does this mean they are less worried about currency weakness . Well, we are still expecting them to hike rates again in the first half of this year. And we do see some pace of hiking. I think going to the Second Quarter of the year for now. Also, the inflationary price has been cut for now. What about the impact of tapering . They have been weve been fairly calm about it. But if the dollar index is up at a sevenweek high, if the dollar strengthens more this year and the fed steps up their pace of tapering, then what happens . I think we are believing the fed will continue to taper the first half of this year. We think especially for Southeast Asian currencies to continue to trend higher, this is due to i think a lot. Countries or economies still having a lot of current account deficit or concerns at the moment. But i think for the second half of the year, i think we do see some pace of recovery downwards for this currency. Meanwhile, korea, got the opposite forum. Particularly against the dollar and the yen who they compete with. The bank cut rates in may. Since then, theyve been fairly steady. What do they do this year . Well, we do believe that they also allow allow high rates in the asian economies. But we only project a rate hike in q4 of this year. I think the boj is likely to be very concerned about the nature of its recovery, even though gdp growth has been bottoming out and exports have seen a recovery. However, we have not seen the Housing Market having improved much. So theyll be concerned the korean won doesnt become too strong and slow the pace of its recovery. Timely, the philippines are still recovering from the storm it took last year. But what do you see happening . We think the overall growth and inflation remains mixed. I think mainly the inflation rise is due to higher inflation. Energy price strikes. Overall, we think that inflation will stabilize around the same level. And they will keep the policy much anchored for the rest of the year. Jeff, thanks for that. The u. S. Shale revolution continues to test reliance. The ceo of exxon mobil thinks its too early to call energy independent. I like the use of selfsufficiency. By 2020, its apparent to us hat become a realistic aspiration now. Were already the Worlds Largest natural gas producer. Were producing last year our crude Oil Production, surpassed levels not even since the 1980s. And its expected well continue to add to capacity over the next two years. So i think it is realistic that the u. S. Could be energy selfsufficient, Energy Security by the end of this decade. When do you think they will be commercially realizable . Chinas inplace shale reser reserves would indicate that theyre larger than the u. S. However, there are a number of attributes to chinas shale gas reserves that make them particularly challenging. Most of these reserves or these formations are buried much deeper than they are in north america. Many of them are in very remote areas where theres not infrastructure to support their development. Many of them are in areas that are very difficult to rein, so building drilling sites and roads to them is challenging. Realistically, is this a decades long story . Yeah. I think thats really the question, sri, is whats the pace . I think theres no question that china will develop a portion of its shale gas reserves. How much of that enormous endowment will be developed is somewhat difficult to judge. And what those of us in the industry that are working with the Chinese Companies today are doing by and large is well in an evaluation mode. Are we seeing real escape velocity in the u. S. Economy . Number one. And number two, was the fed right to taper on that basis . In my view, the fed was correct in beginning its taper. In terms of the u. S. Economy, i think my view is the same that you would hear from many u. S. Businessmen. Our sense is that the u. S. Economy is very well positioned to begin a steady and potentially robust economy. Why is it not happening . I think the reason its not happening is we continue to deal with a relative amount of uncertainty around physical policy in the united states. And whats been an extended period of the last two to three years of uncertainty around a number of areas of regulatory impacts. Now, the keyboard in the future, apparently, this so says john chen in an interview with re code hes betting the companys smartphones with a quirky keyboard. Its a main tool for businesses, especially those regulated in industries such as the sector. By the way, Nbc News Group is the share hold honor in re code and cnbc has a content partnership.