Major International Business Headlines Brief::: 02 September 2019

Mon Sep 2 04:11:48 CAT 2019

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Major International Business Headlines Brief::: 02 September 2019

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*  South African arms firm Denel says gets 1.8 bln rand bailout

*  Gas pipeline in Nigeria's Delta state shut following breach

*  ICCO halves 2018/19 world cocoa surplus estimate

*  Tunisia central bank holds key interest rate unchanged at 7.75 pct

*  South Africa's rand firmer, trade hopes lift stocks to 3-week high

*  S.Africa's Discovery warns of falling full-year profits

*  Kenya's inflation falls to 5.0% year-on-year in August

*  South Africa's trade balance swings to surprise deficit in July

*  How veganism is taking the step from kitchen to closet

*  Trade war: US hits China with new wave of tariffs

*  French air traffic control 'outage' hits UK flights

*  Has President Trump's trade war cost China three million jobs?

*  Elon Musk and Jack Ma disagree about AI's threat

*  Investors give Shoe Zone shares a kicking

 <mailto:info at bulls.co.zw> 

South African arms firm Denel says gets 1.8 bln rand bailout

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South African state arms firm Denel said on Friday
it had received a 1.8 billion rand ($118.13 million) bailout and that
government would consider its request for a further 1 billion rand cash
injection in budget planning for 2020/21.

Denel, which has been struggling to emerge from a financial crisis, added in
a statement it would dispose of non-core assets urgently and establish
strategic equity partnerships across the company.

($1 = 15.2369 rand)

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Gas pipeline in Nigeria's Delta state shut following breach

YENAGOA (Reuters) - A gas pipeline in Nigeria’s Delta state was shut down on
Friday following a breach, according to state oil company NNPC and local
authorities.

Locals in Otu-Jeremi in Ughelli South area of Delta state reported an
explosion on the pipeline, though NNPC said the pipeline was shut down
following a leak. Police said they were investigating the situation.

Two local residents said there was an explosion.

“NPDC are saying that it was a rupture and not fire, but my men have gone
there to find out,” said Adeyinka Adeleke, a senior police officer in Delta
state.

NNPC spokesman Ndu Ughamadu said the company had ordered the pipeline closed
following a leak and that repair works would commence soon.

The pipeline flows from Oil Mining License 34, which is owned by Nigeria
Petroleum Development Co, a subsidiary of NNPC, and Nigerian company ND
Western.

OML 34 produces an average of 390 million standard cubic feet per day of
gas, and 17,000 barrels per day of oil and condensates.

Gas processed from the field goes into the Escravos-Lagos Pipeline, which
feeds Egbin power plant, the largest in Nigeria.

ICCO halves 2018/19 world cocoa surplus estimate

LONDON (Reuters) - The International Cocoa Organization (ICCO) on Friday
halved its forecast for the expected global cocoa surplus in the 2018/19
season as growth in grindings, a proxy for demand, is set to outpace
production increases.

The inter-governmental body estimated there will be a surplus of 18,000
tonnes in the 2018/19 season, which runs from October to September, down
from a previous forecast of 36,000 tonnes.

It reduced its surplus estimate for the 2017/18 season by 1,000 tonnes to
8,000 tonnes.

The ICCO increased its world grindings estimate by 33,000 tonnes to 4.783
million tonnes as the industry benefits from low international prices and an
uptick in grindings in origin countries.

It sees grindings rising by 11% in Asia to 1.166 million tonnes, 3% in
Africa to 991,000 tonnes, 4% in the Americas to 903,000 tonnes, and 1% in
Europe to 1.724 million tonnes.

In terms of global production, the Abidjan-based body raised its estimate by
15,000 tonnes to 4.849 million tonnes, given production increases in Ivory
Coast, Ecuador and Cameroon.

Production in Africa, which account for three-quarters of the world’s cocoa,
is seen up 6% to 3.701 million tonnes, including 2.2 million tonnes from
Ivory Coast, the world’s top cocoa producer.

Tunisia central bank holds key interest rate unchanged at 7.75 pct

TUNIS (Reuters) - Tunisia’s central bank kept its key interest rate
unchanged at 7.75 percent on Friday.

The bank raised the rate to that level from 6.75 percent in February to
combat high inflation.

Annual inflation eased to 6.5 percent in July from 6.8 percent in June.

Tunisia’s economy has been in crisis since the toppling of autocrat Zine
al-Abidine Ben Ali in 2011. Unemployment and inflation shot up and the
country has struggled with tough economic reforms to reduce public spending.

South Africa's rand firmer, trade hopes lift stocks to 3-week high

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa’s rand firmed against the U.S. dollar
in late trade on Friday, as hopes for a rapprochement on trade between
Beijing and Washington calmed investors’ nerves.

The currency had suffered through much of August, sliding nearly 6% on fears
of a downgrade to junk by Moody’s, and concerns about the trade dispute
between the two major buyers of South Africa’s exports.

But the mood lifted across world markets after U.S. President Donald Trump
said some trade discussions were taking place with China on Thursday, with
more talks scheduled.

At 1520 GMT the rand was 0.77% firmer at 15.2075 per dollar. Stocks climbed
to a three-week high.

The Johannesburg All-share index gained 1.56% to 55,259 points, while the
benchmark Top-40 index rose 1.56% to 49,320 points, to levels last seen on
Aug. 13.

Insurer Discovery closed 6.64% firmer to 115.17 rand as investors looked
beyond a warning that full-year profits would fall. [L5N25Q3D9]

Greg Davies, trader at Cratos Capital, said the firm’s trading statement
likely gave some comfort to investors who had been concerned after analysts
had flagged accounting assumptions at Discovery that they considered
optimistic.

Retailer Massmart continued to gain after it outlined plans on Thursday to
arrest a decline in profits and margins, and closed up 5.39% at 45.17 rand.

In fixed income, the yield on the benchmark 10-year government issue rose
3.5 basis points to 8.23%.

($1 = 15.2369 rand)

S.Africa's Discovery warns of falling full-year profits

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South African insurer Discovery said on Friday it
expected its normalised profits to fall by between 5% and 10% for the
full-year, after ploughing around 20% of its earnings into new business
lines.

The company has been investing heavily in its new bank and other businesses
as it seeks to expand and adapt a fluctuating premium model that has shaken
up traditional approaches to insurance in other sectors.

In a trading statement released ahead of its annual results on Sept. 4, it
said spending on new businesses had increased by 114% in the year to June 30
compared to a year earlier.

“New businesses will require investment through their start-up phase,” it
said, adding that the roughly 20% spending on new businesses was expected to
decrease in the next few years towards a long-term goal of 10% of earnings.

It said profit growth was also expected to return to its stated goal of
consumer price inflation plus 10%, and said the group was well capitalised.

The company’s shares rose to 4.5% shortly after the statement at 1046 GMT.

Greg Davies, trader at Cratos Capital, said the statement likely gave some
comfort to investors and others in the market who had been concerned after
analysts had flagged accounting assumptions at Discovery that they
considered optimistic.

Discovery’s share price has been hammered since the ruling African National
Congress (ANC) published a bill on its proposed National Health Insurance to
provide universal health cover in South Africa and restrict the role of
private medical schemes, a significant part of Discovery’s business.

The insurer repeated on Friday that it would continue to engage with
policymakers and others on the planned reform and said it did not anticipate
any significant impact on its business.

“The bill is not expected to have a material long-term impact on the
Discovery Health business and may in fact present new opportunities for
growth and product innovation,” its statement said.

Kenya's inflation falls to 5.0% year-on-year in August

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya’s inflation fell to 5.0% year-on-year in August
from 6.27% a month earlier, helped by falling food prices, the statistics
office said on Friday.

On a monthly basis, inflation was -0.90% from -0.36% in July, with the Food
and Non-Alcoholic Drinks Index falling 1.89% compared with July, the Kenya
National Bureau of Statistics said.

South Africa's trade balance swings to surprise deficit in July

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa’s trade balance swung to a 2.9 billion
rand ($190 million) deficit in July after a revised 5.5 billion rand surplus
in June, data from the revenue service showed on Friday.

A Reuters poll had forecast a 2.7 billion rand trade surplus.

The trade war between China and the United States and its impact on global
trade demand are expected to begin hurting the country’s exports sales,
especially of commodities.

Exports rose 3.4% on a month-on-month basis to 112.9 billion rand in July,
but were outpaced by a steep climb in imports, which were up 11.7% to 115.8
billion rand, the South African Revenue Service (SARS) said.

Sales of base metals fell 10%, mineral product sales fell 8%, and precious
metal sales dipped 5%, data from SARS showed.

Mining production in South Africa has been in free fall since 2018, hit by
uncertainty over local ownership and by sluggish international demand for
commodities with economic growth in China slowing.

Mining companies are also fighting to have a 2018 mining charter aimed at
increasing black ownership reviewed, with uncertainty over the outcome of
the move leading to reduced capital investment.

The charter, which was delayed for years amid wrangling with the industry,
among other stipulations raised the level of black ownership to 30 percent
from 26 percent for new mining rights while companies that have met the 26
percent threshold do not have to increase it.

($1 = 15.2369 rand)

How veganism is taking the step from kitchen to closet

Remember when synthetic leather was the fall-back option, if you couldn't
afford the real thing?

Not any more.

It has just become a selling point: clothes and accessories marketed as free
from cow skin and any other animal products, are being launched by retailers
up and down the High Street, including Marks & Spencer, Zara and New Look.

There are fur coats, that are "vegan", jute and plastic "vegan" belts, and
shoes made from tree bark, natural rubber and coconut fibre, labelled
"vegan".

While an increasing number of Brits are trying to eat less meat, market
researchers Mintel found in their latest fashion and sustainability report
that the trend is now spreading from kitchen to closet. It found animal
welfare came top of a list of issues that people said they considered before
buying clothes, with 42% saying it was important to them.

The vegan leather brewed in a lab

The most googled questions about veganism answered

Mintel predicted 2019 would see a boom in animal-free shoe collections with
shoppers of all ages saying they would buy footwear labelled "vegan".

"It seems to be a bit of a buzz word," says Patsy Perry, senior lecturer in
fashion marketing at the University of Manchester.

As well as being on trend - and with a much better ring to it than
"synthetic leather" - the "vegan" label does convey an important extra
distinction, Ms Perry points out.

"If you are labelling it as vegan, the whole product needs to be vegan," she
says. That means checking things like the glue that holds the shoe together
for example and the chemicals used for finishing them.

At the top end, designers like Stella McCartney - described by Ms Perry as
the original pioneer in this area - have shunned leather and fur for some
time. Her fashion house is now exploring a leather substitute made from
fungi, and looking at replacing silk with yeast proteins.

But it is at the more accessible end of the market where the trend is really
taking off, with some big brands already converting demand for vegan fashion
into sales.

Dr Martens - purveyors of high-top leather boots - has experienced a 300%
rise in sales of the vegan version of its stompers over the past year.

Launched right back in 2011, the vegan DMs are made from a combination of
polyester fabric and polyurethane. After last year's rapid growth, vegan
boots represented 4% of all pairs sold.

The Vegan Society says they've seen a boom in products registered with the
vegan trademark: in 2018 there were 119. So far this year it says 1,956 have
been registered.

"New products are being added daily, and many new brands are currently in
the process of submitting products for review - including some very
well-known High Street brands," says the Vegan society's Dominika Piasecka.

These new products aren't for the most part, though, coming at an extra to
cost to consumers.

Vegan Doc Martens cost the same as the leather originals. New Look, one of
the first High Street chains to use the vegan trademark prices ballet
"flats" at £7.99 and a vegan laptop handbag at £29.99, comparable with its
other products.

This marks a change, points out retail analyst Kate Hardcastle. In the past
ethical products, whether that was fair trade or organic came at a premium.

On the other hand, once upon a time that "leather-look" handbag would have
cost half the price of the real thing. So should these products cost less?

Charging similar prices to general ranges is justifiable, argues Ms
Hardcastle, since the cost of materials is a small part of the overall cost
and the cost of production isn't likely to be significantly lower for vegan
products.

Leicester: A city fighting fast-fashion sweatshops

Fast fashion: Should we change how we think about clothes?

She does strike a note of caution though, over just how ethical these new
ranges are overall.

The debate over durability, production techniques, crop-growing impacts,
pollution, biodegradability and recyclability is a complicated one, not to
mention the ethics around the working conditions for people making the
products, whatever the component materials.

Environmental campaigners are adamant that the best approach to is to buy
less, never mind what the item is made of.

Some companies are "dressing up" items using the vegan tag, warns Ms
Hardcastle, to make products appear "far more environmentally [and]
ethically friendly than the product actually is".

Consumers should not be "lulled into a false sense of security" that just
because something isn't an animal hide it is suddenly therefore
environmentally friendly, she warns. "That isn't the case."--BBC

Trade war: US hits China with new wave of tariffs

The US has imposed fresh tariffs on $112bn (£92bn) of Chinese imported goods
such as shoes, nappies and food.

The new tariffs are a sharp escalation in the bruising trade war, and could
cost households $800 a year.

The move is the first phase of US President Donald Trump's latest plan to
place 15% duties on $300bn of Chinese imports by the end of the year.

In response, Beijing introduced tariffs on US crude oil, the first time fuel
has been targeted.

If fully imposed, Mr Trump's programme would mean that nearly all Chinese
imports - worth about $550bn - would be subject to punitive tariffs.

What was initially a dispute over China's allegedly unfair trade practices
is increasingly seen as a geopolitical power struggle.

A quick guide to the US-China war

The US-China trade row in charts

So far, Washington has imposed tariffs on some $250bn of Chinese goods to
pressure Beijing into changing its policies on intellectual property,
industrial subsidies, market access, and the forced transfers of technology
to Chinese firms.

Beijing has consistently denied that it engages in unfair trade practices,
and has retaliated with tariffs on $110bn of US products.

How do they differ from previous tariffs?

Katie Prescott, BBC Business Reporter

It's the American consumer who will bear the brunt of these fresh tariffs,
unlike previous rounds which have hit the manufacturing sector hardest.

Nappies, dishwashers, shoes, clothes, food - looking through the 122-page
list of eligible products, it's hard to find something that's not on there.

Many retailers say they have little choice but to pass on the cost to
shoppers.

The president of the American Apparel and Footwear Association, Rick
Helfenbein, describes the tariffs as like "punishing your daughter for
something your son did. It makes no sense".

The next round of tariffs on more clothes and big-ticket items like laptops
and iPhones are due in December. Donald Trump says this will help to protect
spending during the Christmas season.

By the end of the year, they'll be in place on almost all of the $550bn of
goods that the US buys every year from China.

And that could add up to $800 to the average household's annual spend,
according to Katheryn Russ from the University of California.

How has industry reacted?

Businesses are finding it increasingly hard to navigate the uncertainty of
the long-running trade dispute.

Analysts say that in view of the latest escalation, the prospect of a
resolution looks grim.

"It's difficult at this stage to see how there can be a deal or at least a
good deal," Julian Evans-Pritchard, a senior China economist at Capital
Economics, told the BBC.

"Since talks broke down back in May, the position of both sides has hardened
and there have been other complications, namely the Huawei ban and Hong Kong
protests, which have made it even more difficult to bridge the gap."

The US government put Huawei on a trade blacklist in May, while President
Trump has tied protests in Hong Kong to a possible trade deal with China.

What is expected on 1 September?

The US is due to impose a 15% tariff on $300bn worth of Chinese goods by the
end of the year in two rounds.

The first round of duties comes into force from 1 September and analysts
expect those tariffs will target imports worth about $150bn.

The Office of the United States Trade Representative would not clarify the
value of goods due to be hit with tariffs this month.

Products to be targeted in September range from meat and cheese to pens and
footwear.

The 15% rate supersedes the 10% originally planned and was announced last
week as tensions between the two sides escalated.

China has retaliated with a 5% levy on crude oil, along with measures
targeting $75bn of US goods.

The measures included extra tariffs of 5% and 10% on nearly 1,717 targeted
products.

Mr Trump has repeatedly argued that China pays for tariffs, but many US
companies have rebutted that claim.

More than 200 footwear firms - including Nike and Converse - said the new
duties would add to existing tariffs of up to 67% on some shoes, driving up
costs for consumers by $4bn each year.

They said the incoming tariffs on footwear would "also mean these massive
tax increases hit tens of millions of Americans when they purchase shoes
during the holiday season".

The American Chamber of Commerce in China also voiced concerns after the US
said it was going ahead with new tariffs.

"Our members have long been clear that tariffs are paid by consumers and
harm business," it said in a statement.

"We urge... that both sides work towards a sustainable agreement as soon as
possible that resolves the fundamental, structural issues foreign businesses
have long faced in China."

What's next?

President Trump has said that trade teams from the US and China are
continuing to talk and will meet in September, but further details have not
been publicly confirmed.

>From 15 December, the second phase of 15% tariffs will be rolled out on the
remainder of Chinese good not previously affected.

This includes technology like phones and computers which President Trump has
sought to protect until now.

On the same date, China will roll out tariffs on around 3,000 more US
products.

The Trump administration plans, in addition, to raise the rates on existing
duties from 25% to 30% on 1 October.

Mr Evans-Pritchard from Capital Economics said this rate could increase
further still.

"The tariff rate could go all the way up to 45%," he said. "Those are the
goods that do the most damage to China and the least collateral damage to
the US."

For the US and Chinese economies, analysts say the pressure created by
tariffs is also building.

"The full-blown trade war, together with China's retaliation in kind, could
reduce potential US GDP growth in the short run by almost 1%," says Gary
Hufbauer of the Washington-based Peterson Institute for International
Economics.

"The impact on China would be larger, as much as 5%."

The USTR said that, until 20 September, it would be collecting public
comments on the planned tariff increases to 30%.--BBC

French air traffic control 'outage' hits UK flights

Some flights to and from the UK are facing delays and cancellations due to
problems affecting French airspace.

British Airways said flights heading to, or passing over, France and Spain
had been affected.

EasyJet said it has been forced to cancel 180 flights out of almost 2,000
scheduled to take off on Sunday.

The French aviation regulator said a "computer failure" had affected control
centres at about 01:30 BST on Sunday, but the issue had now been resolved.

In a statement posted on Twitter, it added that delays "should be reduced
gradually".

National Air Traffic Services (Nats) said it does not know how many flights
have been affected but it is working with airlines in the UK to try to
minimise disruption.

It added that French authorities had been allowing extra flights to enter
the country's airspace on Sunday afternoon to try to limit knock-on delays.

Gatwick Airport said passengers should check with airlines on the status of
their flights before heading to the airport.

EasyJet said it had contacted affected passengers directly and given the
option of transferring their flight for free or receiving a refund, it said.

The airline added it was seeing significant delays and recommended all its
passengers, regardless of their destination, check the status of their
flight using its online "flight tracker" tool for real time information
before going to the airport.

British Airways also urged customers to check the status of their flights
online.

The airline said an air traffic control "outage" in France had hit flights
going through both French and Spanish airspace.

Some passengers have told the BBC their British Airways flights had been
cancelled.

The airline said it would not release any cancellation figures but added any
affected customers had been notified directly.

It said it would offer flexible rebooking options for anyone who wants to
change their dates of travel as a result of the disruption.

Ryanair advised customers on its website there had been a "serious French
ATC [air traffic control] equipment failure" early on Sunday morning.

It said delays of "up to three hours are being suffered".

Heathrow cancels 177 flights after strike vote

Air traffic control fault halts flights

Delays after flights suspended at Gatwick

Travel expert Simon Calder said: "France is absolutely at the heart of
European air traffic control - some 60% of all EasyJet flights to anywhere
go over French territory.

"This appears to be some kind of malfunction which has greatly reduced the
flow rate [of flights] so there's reports of pilots in Lisbon, for example,
trying to get to the UK telling passengers we could be five hours late."

He said affected passengers will not be eligible for compensation,
explaining: "It's not the airlines' fault."

But he said the airlines have a strict duty of care, which means they must
provide meals and if necessary accommodation to passengers.

He added: "They also have to rebook you on the first available flight,
ideally on the same day, even if it means paying money to a rival to get you
home."

The disruption is having a wider knock-on effect in the UK, with some
flights from Scotland to England cancelled.

Richard Martin was due to fly from Edinburgh to London Stansted when EasyJet
texted to say his flight had been cancelled.

"We are booked on another flight tomorrow but I'm due to be back at work,"
he said.

"The queues at the airport and everything are crazy and we've had some
family members say something similar has also happened to them."--BBC

Has President Trump's trade war cost China three million jobs?

Claim: President Trump says three million jobs have been lost in China as a
consequence of the trade war with the United States.

Verdict: While estimates for China's employment vary widely, they do not
generally support Mr Trump's claim. When asked, the White House directed us
to a survey that gave a lower figure.

Over the past year, the United States and China have imposed tariffs on
billions of dollars worth of one another's goods.

Mr Trump accuses Beijing of unfair trading practices and intellectual
property theft.

"China has taken a very hard hit over the last number of months," he said at
the recent G7 Summit.

"They've lost three million jobs, and it'd soon be much more than three
million jobs."

This is not the first time President Trump has boasted about the damage the
trade war has inflicted on China. "They've lost two and a half million jobs
in a very short period of time," he said last week.

First, let's look at where President Trump may have got his numbers from.

The White House press office responded to our query with a link to an
article published in July in the South China Morning Post, a Hong Kong-based
newspaper.

This article quoted a report from a Chinese investment bank, China
International Capital Corp (CICC), with an estimate of trade war-related job
losses in the manufacturing sector of up to 1.9 million between July 2018
and May 2019.

When pressed further, Mr Trump's spokesperson said the CICC survey had not
included data after May, when there had been a significant increase in
tariffs on goods from China.

However, no explanation was offered as to where the figure of three million
- or the 2.5 million a week earlier - had been sourced.

The BBC also contacted the US Treasury Department, but has not yet received
a response.

What can we say about job losses in China?

There is no official Chinese data specifically on job losses as a result of
the US-China trade war, but economic surveys carried out by two Chinese
banks suggest a range of 1.2 to 1.9 million jobs were impacted by the trade
war in the industrial sector.

While the imposition of tariffs has had an impact on Chinese manufacturing,
there are other reasons for job losses.

"It's possible to count job decline but the problem is - what's the cause?",
says Mary Lovely at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a
US-based think tank.

"It's impossible to establish cause and effect," she says.

Job losses in manufacturing have been part of a longer-term trend as China
moves towards a more service-based economy with the creation of jobs in
finance and technology, and this transition began even before the trade war
started.

So, losses in the industrial sector need to be balanced against gains
elsewhere across the economy.

China's manufacturing sector also faces pressure from countries in the
region with cheaper labour costs.

US-China trade war: Moving to Vietnam to avoid sanctions

The Chinese government has also given a particular emphasis to increasing
employment in urban areas.

"Urban services have absorbed much of the labour from closed factories.
There is also reverse migration going from coastal provinces to their origin
provinces like Anhui, Sichuan and Henan, where local industries are
growing," says Dan Wang, China Economic Analyst at The Economist
Intelligence Unit in Beijing.

China's total labour force in 2018 was 788 million, according to the World
Bank.

So, job losses of two million in the manufacturing sector over the past year
would represent just 0.25% of the total workforce.

The country's overall unemployment for 2018 - according to official
government statistics - was 3.8%, the lowest level since 2002.

But President Trump's intervention comes at a time when the Chinese
Communist Party leadership is paying closer attention to the jobs market - a
key indication of the Party's performance.

In July, the country's top decision-making body, Politburo, said it has
placed employment as one of its top priorities.

--BBC

Elon Musk and Jack Ma disagree about AI's threat

Alibaba's Jack Ma and Tesla's Elon Musk took opposing views of the risks and
potential rewards of artificial intelligence at an event in Shanghai.

The Chinese entrepreneur said he was "quite optimistic" about AI and thought
it was nothing for "street smart" people like them to be scared of.

"I don't know man, that's like famous last words," responded Tesla's chief.

Mr Musk added that technology was evolving faster than our ability to
understand it.

The two did, however, agree on one topic: that one of the biggest problems
the world is facing is population collapse.

The businessmen are two of the most influential tech leaders shaping the
world today.

US-based Mr Musk made his fortune at the digital payments firm PayPal before
going on to run electric car-maker Tesla, space rocket company SpaceX and
tunnel-transport business The Boring Company among other ventures. He also
helped create OpenAI, a San Francisco-based AI research company, although he
has since broken ties with it.

Mr Ma co-founded Alibaba, which rivals Amazon for the title of the world's
largest e-retailer and is also one of the world's largest cloud computing
providers. The group is one of the world's biggest spenders on AI, both
within its own business as well as via investments in dozens of third-party
companies.

Their 45-minute conversation kicked off the World AI Conference (WAIC),
which ties into China's goal of overtaking the US to become the world's
leading artificial intelligence innovator by 2030.

Less work

Mr Ma focused much of his comments on how machine learning could act as a
force for good. He said it was something "to embrace" and would deliver
fresh insights into how people think.

"When human beings understand ourselves better, then we can improve the
world better," he explained.

Furthermore, he predicted AI would help create new kinds of jobs, which
would require less of our time and be centred on creative tasks.

"I think people should work three days a week, four hours a day," he said.

"In the artificial intelligence period, people can live 120 years.

"At that time we are going to have a lot of jobs which nobody [will] want to
do. So, we need artificial intelligence for the robots to take care of the
old guys.

"So that's my view about jobs, don't worry about it, we will have jobs."

By contrast, Mr Musk suggested that mass unemployment was a real concern.

"AI will make jobs kind of pointless," he claimed.

"Probably the last job that will remain will be writing AI, and then
eventually, the AI will just write its own software."

He added that there was a risk that human civilization could come to an end
and ultimately be seen as a staging post for a superior type of life.

"You could sort of think of humanity as a biological boot loader for digital
super-intelligence," Mr Musk explained.

"A boot loader is... sort of like the minimal bit of code necessary for a
computer to start.

"You couldn't evolve silicon circuits. There needed to be biology to get
there."

To avoid such a fate, he said we needed to find a way to connect our brains
to computers so that we could "go along for the ride with AI" - something he
is trying to achieve via one of his latest start-ups.

Otherwise, he cautioned, AI would become weary of trying to communicate with
humans, as we would be much slower thinkers in comparison.

"Human speech to a computer will sound like very slow tonal wheezing, kind
of like whale sounds," Mr Musk explained.

"What's our bandwidth? Like a few hundred bits per second, basically, maybe
a few kilobits per second, if you're going to be generous.

"Whereas a computer can easily communicate at a terabit level. So, the
computer will just get impatient if nothing else. It'll be like talking to a
tree - that's humans.

"It will be barely getting any information out."

By contrast, Mr Ma acknowledged that AI could now beat humans at games like
chess and Go, but claimed computers would only be one of several intelligent
tools that we would develop in time.

"Don't worry about the machines," he said.

"For sure, we should understand one thing: that man can never make another
man.

"A computer is a computer. A computer is just a toy.

"Man cannot even make a mosquito. So, we should have a confidence. Computers
only have chips, men have the heart. It's the heart where the wisdom comes
from."

Although Mr Ma acknowledged that we needed to find ways to become "more
creative and constructive", he concluded that "my view is that [a] computer
may be clever, but human beings are much smarter".

Mr Musk responded: "Yeah, definitely not.

"It's going to get to the point where [AI] just can completely simulate a
person in every way possible, like many people simultaneously," he added.

"In fact, there's a strong argument, we're in the simulation right now."

Towards the end of the event the two men came together on one point - that
concerns about overpopulation were misguided.

"Assuming... there's a benevolent future with AI, I think that the biggest
problem the world will face in 20 years is population collapse," said Mr
Musk

"I want to emphasise this, the biggest issue in 20 years will be population
collapse, not explosion collapse."

Mr Ma said he was absolutely in agreement.

"One point four billion in China sounds a lot, but I think [over the] next
20 years we'll see this thing bring big trouble to China," he said.

"And the speed of population decreasing is going to speed up. Now you've got
a collapse."

However, he suggested, using AI to help people live longer, healthier lives
could be part of the solution.--BBC

Investors give Shoe Zone shares a kicking

Shares in Shoe Zone plunged by more than 30% on Friday after the High Street
chain announced that its boss had resigned and warned that its profits would
be lower than expected.

The firm, which has 550 UK stores and 4,000 employees, said Nick Davis would
leave immediately to "pursue other business interests".

It blamed "tough" trading conditions since May for the profit warning.

Mr Davis will be replaced by the firm's executive chairman Anthony Smith.

"As has been widely publicised, the UK High Street is currently facing a
challenging environment in which to operate," he said.

As a result, Mr Smith said he would focus attentions on online and larger
out-of-town stores.

Why the High Street crisis could worsen

The company also revealed that its freehold property portfolio was worth
£3.1m less than expected, and will write down the value of its 17 freehold
properties to £5.3m. It blamed a "tough" property market for the decision.

The number of empty shops in Britain hit its highest rate in four years in
July as shopper footfall fell by 1.9%, the worst decline in seven years.

But Shoe Zone said there was an upside to the difficult trading conditions
on the High Street.

"The pressure on the retail property market has enabled Shoe Zone to achieve
an average 23.5% fall in rents on renewal and average outstanding lease
length of only two years," Mr Smith said.

The firm's shares fell as low as 116.6p in early trading on Friday, well
below the 160p they were valued at when the company listed in 2014.--BBC

INVESTORS DIARY 2019

Company

Event

Venue

Date & Time

Companies under Cautionary

Bindura Nickel Corporation

Padenga Holdings

Delta Corporation

Meikles Limited

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