Are Freeports the Future?
Can 'freeports' spark a post-Brexit manufacturing boom?
Episodes
The World of Business
Insights into the business world - featuring content from BBC Radio 4's In Business programme, and also Global Business from the BBC World Service.
Episodes
Changing Realities
Aleks Krotoski explores new ways that we are watching and listening to content.
Global Business: How Free are Hong Kong’s Media?
How much influence does China have on Hong Kong’s media?
The US Media: “Enemies of the people?”
With the media in the United States facing a period of unprecedented challenge - technologically, editorially and politically, Chris Bowlby travels to New York to assess the impact of the huge changes sweeping the industry. Some traditional print titles such as The New York Times are enjoying a "Trump Bump," with its digital offer attracting record subscriptions but how sustainable is this? With billions now using social media to access information and news, how can journalism compete and counte...
Is Tunisia’s Media Freedom in Danger?
Tunisia has seen huge changes in its media industry in the seven years since its revolution and move to democracy. Before 2011, the country’s TV and radio were tightly controlled by the regime of President Ben Ali, one of the most restrictive in the Arab world. Now the media has opened up to a whole range of new players and there is significant freedom of speech, leading many to hold Tunisia up as the Arab Spring’s success story. But while people are able to say what they want in public, this do...
Recrafting Serbia's Economy
Across Serbia, age-old traditions passed down through the generations are dying out. Those hit the hardest are people living in the rural areas who rely on skills like weaving, wood-cutting and pottery to make an income. Realising the potential, the Serbian state is now turning its attention to these micro-enterprises to bolster its economy, offering tax relief and other benefits to artisans. Nicola Kelly speaks to craftsmen and young entrepreneurs about the challenges they face and finds out ho...
Colombia’s Coffee Revolutions
Can the fashion for high-end coffee save Colombia’s struggling farmers? It’s not been easy growing coffee in recent decades in Colombia, where rural life has been dominated by the conflict between guerrillas, paramilitaries and drug traffickers. Now, two years on from the historic peace deal here, how is business benefiting? And with global market prices not even covering growers’ costs, could the trend for coffee with a story come to growers’ rescue? Presenter: Simon Maybin Producer: Karenina V...
Retail's AI Revolution
Will artificial intelligence change how we shop and decide which retailers succeed? Senior retail executive, Jeremy Schwartz, meets chat bots, robots and the humans behind them, to find out. He explores the impact that the AI revolution may have on jobs - not just the number of them but their nature too. As algorithms take over certain tasks, he asks how humans - and the companies that employ them - will need to respond. And he looks at the growing digital divide between retailers and asks what ...
On the Trade War Frontline
As international trade tensions escalate, the US state of Wisconsin is a fascinating place to discover the consequences. Specialist producers like Wisconsin's ginseng growers are directly affected by the new trade war between the US and China. Traditional cheese makers meanwhile see all this as the latest round in an endless battle for freer trade in global food. And in the south of the state, a new kind of manufacturing economy is taking shape with a vast new investment by the Taiwanese tech ma...
How Sex Toys Became Sexy
Do you own a sex toy? And if so, would you admit it to your friends? Increasingly, the answer to both questions is yes. Once a seedy mail-order product advertised in the back pages of porn magazines, sex toys today are marketed as a fun way for couples to enhance their relationships. And in the process, the global sales of these objects of arousal have grown exponentially into the billions of dollars. Laurence Knight explores how this came about, speaking to industry pioneers such as Sam Roddick...
Soft Power Seduction: China Lures Taiwan's Youth
Young Taiwanese entrepreneurs working in a start-up hub are offered attractive sweeteners. But this isn’t in California or even Taipei, it’s on the outskirts of Shanghai. The People’s Republic of China is setting its sights on Taiwan’s youth by encouraging them to relocate to the ‘mainland’. Wages in Taiwan have stagnated as its economic growth has failed to keep pace with that of China, prompting thousands of people to leave the island and head to the mega cities of the People’s Republic for be...
Retiring Retirement
Life expectancy is going up, pensions are declining. Meanwhile the official retirement age has been abolished, while the age at which you can draw your state pension is rising. As a result, more and more of us will have to work until our 70s, or even our 80s. So, asks David Baker, is this the end of retirement? That may not be as bad as it sounds. For In Business, David meets people who could live a quiet, retired life, but choose not to. One founded a bikini company in her 70s, others sell vint...
Banking on Change?
Online banking has grown massively, and some new banks don't bother with a branch network at all. But as Ruth Sunderland discovers, some in the banking business still think high street branches and personal service have a bright future. So how far will this financial revolution go? Talking to leading players in the business, Ruth hears how those who want to manage our money are full of new ideas, but facing huge uncertainty about what banking will become. Producer: Chris Bowlby Picture Credit: S...
Failures, Flops and Flaws
Thousands of new consumer products are launched every year, and most end in failure. These flops are rarely discussed, and quickly forgotten. The Museum of Failure in Sweden is taking a different approach, showcasing some of the world's most flawed products and services. Ruth Alexander talks to curator Samuel West, and some of the product designers, about what we can learn from commercial mistakes. Producer: John Murphy Image: The 1957 Ford Edsel parked outside the Museum of Failure in Helsingbo...
Has Taiwan Lost Its Roar as an “Asian Tiger” Economy?
Once known as a hugely successful " Asian Tiger" economy built on hi-tech manufacturing, Taiwan's recent economic growth has been relatively sluggish, wages have stagnated and young people are leaving for better paid jobs in China and elsewhere. So what does the self-ruled island need to do to start roaring again? Caroline Bayley reports from Taipei. Producer and Presenter: Caroline Bayley Image: Taiwan Credit: BBC
The Neopolitan Tech Experiment
Can tech entrepreneurs revitalise Southern Italy’s failing economy? Manuela Saragosa visits Naples – which has seen a huge exodus of its talented young people – to explore if a change of direction might be possible. She meets Neapolitans starting up high-tech businesses against the odds and explores why, rather surprisingly, in recent years the city has attracted significant foreign investment from big tech firms. What has been the city’s appeal? She also asks what the business reasons are for b...
Our 5G Future
In just a couple of years, the fifth generation mobile network will be available. Like previous generations, 5G will offer consumers greater speed and capability when they use their smartphones and tablets. Advocates argue it is more than just the next step in that evolution. Lightning fast speed, greater bandwidth and more reliability have the potential to transform entire industries: from how a surgeon operates on us and the products we use are made, to how we are transported to and from work ...
Pop for Export in South Korea
As K-pop and K-drama go global, what are the secrets of their success? The Korean Wave - South Korea’s pop culture exports of music and TV dramas - has already swept across much of Asia, including the giant markets of China and Japan, bringing billions of dollars into the country’s economy every year. Now, with boy band BTS topping the US album charts, and hit dramas reaching streaming services around the world, the wave appears to be growing into a tsunami. How did this medium-sized Asian natio...
How Much is Your Rubbish Worth?
When you throw away rubbish, it can create an environmental problem – or a business opportunity. Your old newspapers, tin cans and plastic bottles are someone else’s valuable harvest. Just like gold, steel, sugar or coffee, rubbish is traded all over the world as a commodity. If it can be recycled, it’s worth money. Until recently, countries vied to recycle the waste of others. But now one of the main players - China - says it doesn’t want foreign rubbish anymore. That has sent this multi-billio...
Out of Office: The Rise of the Digital Nomad
What do digital nomads mean for the world of work? A new army of digital nomads is wandering the world. Equipped with a laptop and willing to work anywhere that has Wi-Fi and a low cost of living, they are changing the way millions think about the world of work. But how do firms and Governments adapt to a fast moving, ever changing highly skilled and paid workforce that doesn’t even recognise borders? And do digital nomads represent the future of work or a threat to taxation systems and therefor...
Confronting Sexual Harassment
Sexual harassment at work has become “normalised” according to the Equality and Human Rights Commission. A recent UK survey by polling company ComRes found that half of women and a fifth of men have experienced it during their careers. From unwanted comments and jokes to inappropriate touching, actions that go beyond office banter seem to have become the norm for many in the workplace. As MPs and shareholders start to look at the issue more closely - business reporter Katie Prescott explores how...
The Economic Impact of America's Opioid Epidemic
Ohio is one of the worst hit US states for opioid addiction rates and deaths. Huge numbers of people have dropped out of the workforce and employers say they struggle to recruit the people they need. If automation increases as a result, will unemployment, despair and addiction get even worse? And is drug testing workers part of the solution or part of the problem? Claire Bolderson asks why the opioid epidemic has taken such a hold here and visits companies hoping to develop new medical solutions...
Ireland's Brexit Challenge
Ireland’s economy is hugely interlinked with its next-door neighbour, the UK, in everything from energy to transport to finance. Can those links be kept after the UK leaves the EU, or will Irish business have to change direction? Ruth Alexander travels to Ireland to find out how businesses large and small are preparing for Brexit, and what challenges - and opportunities - they see. Producer: Chris Bowlby
The Global Trade Referee
The WTO has facilitated global trade since the 1990s but is now under threat. Ever since he was elected, US President Donald Trump has been critical of the World Trade Organisation, which he has described as a “catastrophe”. Also known as the WTO, the organisation was set up to facilitate global trade and act as a referee in trade disputes. Its ultimate objective is to avoid the sort of trade war that can lead to a real war. But as the United States and China threaten each other with new tariffs...
Kenya's Basic Income Experiment
What happens if you give every adult in a village $22 a month, no strings attached, for 12 years? In rural Kenya, researchers are trying to find out. They're conducting the world's largest study of 'universal basic income' - giving 'free money' to nearly 200 villages, to see whether this could kick-start development and bring people out of poverty. The BBC's Africa correspondent Anne Soy visits western Kenya to meet some of the people involved in this giant economic experiment, and to find out w...
Belarus' Tractor Town
The vast Minsk Tractor Works in Belarus was famed all over the Soviet Union. And it's still making tractors. Raging capitalism in the 1990s closed down hundreds of state-owned factories. But Belarus kept open this complex providing not only work but cradle to grave care for tens of thousands of Belarusians. Clinics, nurseries and holiday camps formed an industrial megapolis within a city. Despite its huge workforce, original buildings and old technology, the Minsk factory is finding new markets ...
The Fish Farming Revolution
By 2050 the world needs to produce 70% more food and we need to do so using fewer resources and with less damage to the environment. Peter Morgan travels to Skjervoy in Norway to find out how technologically sophisticated fish farming businesses are increasing the availability and lowering the price of the fish we consume and he hears about the environmental issues that pose a serious challenge to the sector's growth. He also discovers how fish farming is providing employment for people in remot...
Can Frankfurt become Europe’s new financial capital?
A small German city with a population of under a million has big ambitions. It wants to beat Paris to the top spot of financial centre of Europe. But can the city of Frankfurt attract the international bankers and their support work force when the UK leaves the European Union next year? Several international banks have already confirmed that staff will be moving to Frankfurt. Office space is secured and the international schools say banks are block booking places for pupils. But what will this m...
Putting the Fizz Back into Catalonia’s Cava
Why Spain’s sparkling fizz, Cava, is seeking to re-invent itself. If you think of sparkling wine what probably comes to mind is popping corks and Champagne. But what about Cava from Spain? In terms of exports Cava is as big as Champagne, and it is made in the same expensive, time-consuming way. Yet its image in recent years has suffered and it’s now generally thought of as a cheap, less popular alternative to the likes of Prosecco. Most Cava comes from Catalonia, that region in Spain which has b...
The Transparency Detectives
Many fees and charges in the investment industry - which, among other things, manages vast pension fund wealth - have been hidden for decades. Lesley Curwen meets the transparency "detectives" intent on bringing reform to a sector that has long shunned it. She asks why the investment industry has been so slow to embrace change and explores the barriers that might still lie ahead. How much money has been unnecessarily spent and how might more transparency alter the shape and structure of the indu...