Business Weekly
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 18 December 2021
⏱️ 49 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this edition of Business Weekly, we’re looking at rising inflation in Turkey, and hear how different communities are trying to live during a period of economic uncertainty. Victoria Craig tours Istanbul to hear from shop workers and families caught up in the currency crisis. Plus we focus on the Netherlands, and Meta’s proposals to build a giant, energy-hungry data-centre there. We hear how the community is divided on the plans from Facebook’s parent company. We’ll look at the diplomatic spat between Lithuania and China, that now has implications for trade between the two countries and the wider European Union, and we also delve into the world of premium pet food, to hear how today’s cats and dogs are getting the luxury treatment from their owners. Business Weekly is presented by Sasha Twining and produced by Clare Williamson. (Image: Tourist shop in Istanbul's spice market, credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Business Weekly with me, Sasha Twining. |
| 0:08.7 | On this edition, we'll hear from the Netherlands, |
| 0:11.4 | where despite opposition, a local community has given the go-ahead for a controversial data centre built by Meta, |
| 0:18.8 | that's Facebook's parent company. |
| 0:23.0 | Plus, we'll talk premium pet food and how spending on specialist food for our cats and dogs has gone up thanks to the pandemic. |
| 0:28.9 | But first, let's start in Turkey, where Victoria Craig and producer Stephen Ryan are. Hello, Victoria. |
| 0:36.0 | Hi, Sasha. So where are you in Turkey? We are in Istanbul, |
| 0:41.1 | and we are actually overlooking the Bosphorus, and it's a very rainy day today. It has been, |
| 0:47.3 | in fact, all week that we've been here, but you can see sort of, you know, the history of the city. |
| 0:52.2 | You really, when you walk around, it sort of, it comes alive. But we've been finding out, you know, they're in the middle of a currency crisis |
| 0:58.5 | and sky high inflation here. So we've been sort of talking to people about what life is like |
| 1:03.9 | to live during these times. Yeah, indeed. So let's take a look at what's happening. The official |
| 1:08.6 | inflation rate in the country is above 21%. The value of the currency has plunged by nearly half this year. |
| 1:16.2 | And the central bank has just slashed interest rates again. And Victoria, given the state of the economy, what is that interest rate decision likely to do? |
| 1:26.3 | Well, it's likely economists say, to worsen the already bad economic situation for people living here. |
| 1:33.4 | And we've been out and about for the last week, really just talking to businesses and people about what this 20% inflation feels like. |
| 1:41.2 | Because I think for a lot of people listening, you know, they'll be used to |
| 1:44.7 | hearing talk about the Federal Reserve or the ECB and the Bank of England talking about, you know, |
| 1:49.4 | inflation running between three and five percent and how that's well above the two percent target. |
| 1:54.6 | And so sort of thinking about what 20 percent feels like is a bit hard to comprehend. So we'll get to |
| 2:00.6 | that in a minute. But, you know, |
| 2:01.7 | this rate decision this week from the central bank is likely to worsen that because it's a |
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