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Speaker 1: Now as a business correspondents with US. Hello Peter, Hello Heather,

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Speaker 1: you been on holiday?

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Speaker 2: I had a break because it's actually a bit too

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Speaker 2: busy to travel because you've got about eight h eight

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Speaker 2: hundred million other people all doing it at the same time.

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Speaker 2: So it was nice to have the sort of the

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Speaker 2: eight days off, but I spent it mainly at home.

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Speaker 1: So what is this Golden Week holiday?

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Speaker 2: Well, this year it's been much longer than normal. It

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Speaker 2: was an eight day holiday. It occurs always at the

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Speaker 2: beginning of the beginning of October for China's National Day,

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Speaker 2: which is the first of October, the anniversary of the

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Speaker 2: founding of the People's Republic of China. But this year

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Speaker 2: we also had the mid Autumn Festival as well, so

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Speaker 2: they sort of joined them together and made one big

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Speaker 2: eight day holiday. You get a huge amount of travel

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Speaker 2: going on. As I said, there's about eight hundred and

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Speaker 2: eighty million domestic trips were made during that week in total.

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Speaker 2: A lot of people go home back to their families,

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Speaker 2: but you also get a lot of travel around China.

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Speaker 2: Places like Beijing and Shanghai very popular. Overseas, Japan and

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Speaker 2: South Korea very popular as well, So you get a

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Speaker 2: lot of overseas travel, and it's often seen as a

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Speaker 2: guide to the state of the economy because this is

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Speaker 2: the chance for people to really splash out and go

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Speaker 2: and spend money on travel, on movies, on restaurants, and

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Speaker 2: so on. But the trend this year hasn't been that

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Speaker 2: great as an indication of China's economy because although there's

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Speaker 2: been a record number of trips, the amount of money

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Speaker 2: spent on those trips has declined. People just don't seem

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Speaker 2: to have the animal spirits anymore. They're really looking for

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Speaker 2: budget deals, budget holidays. Hotels, although they may be completely full,

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Speaker 2: have had to slash their prices, so they're not making

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Speaker 2: the same sort of money as before. And this is

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Speaker 2: all part of the fact that there's really a couple

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Speaker 2: of things going on. One is the property market. It's

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Speaker 2: still a very big overhang on the Chinese economy, been

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Speaker 2: going down now for about four years. And also there's

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Speaker 2: a lot of unemployment, particularly youth unemployment. Nearly one in

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Speaker 2: five students people under twenty four are unemployed. So it

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Speaker 2: just doesn't really encourage people to go and splash the cash.

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Speaker 1: And now, what do you know about this resort hotel

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Speaker 1: in Macau.

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Speaker 2: Oh, it's a great idea. Well, I tell you why

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Speaker 2: it is because this is a joint venture between IRAD

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Speaker 2: in Hong Kong. Now, in Hong Kong, IRAD is very

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Speaker 2: well known. They are the leading diagnostic group. So if

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Speaker 2: you need to go and have a scan of some

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Speaker 2: sort and X ray and MRI scan, CT scan, the

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Speaker 2: chances you will end up at IRAD. And they've opened

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Speaker 2: the world's first resort hospital inside the Studio City Complex

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Speaker 2: in Macau. Now this is a huge, glitzy Hollywood themed

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Speaker 2: casino and entertainment resort. And the idea is that while

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Speaker 2: you're there, Macaw has a lot of visitors thirty nine

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Speaker 2: mes tourists each year. Some of them are going to

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Speaker 2: be quite health conscious and maybe want to stay a

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Speaker 2: bit longer and enjoy some medical services. And medical tourism

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Speaker 2: is absolutely booming in Asia. The Asian region accounts for

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Speaker 2: about seventy five percent of the global market. Last year

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Speaker 2: it was about sixty billion dollars worth of revenues. That's

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Speaker 2: projected to double over the next few years. South Korea,

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Speaker 2: Singapore and Thailand very much dominate that space. But with

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Speaker 2: this captive number of people coming to Macau, The idea

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Speaker 2: is that Macau can try and you tap into that

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Speaker 2: sort of huge market for medical tourism. And why not,

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Speaker 2: why not, after you know, a heavy night at the

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Speaker 2: Roulette table, go and have a full body scan and

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Speaker 2: a collagen boost afterwards. Why not?

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Speaker 1: Why not combine two of your greatest luves. Now are

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Speaker 1: we going to get over the fact that the Japanese

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Speaker 1: prime minister, the incoming one, is a punk rocker.

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Speaker 2: Well, there's two things that really stand out. If you're

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Speaker 2: a foreigner, you really only know two things about Takichi.

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Speaker 2: One is that she was a former drummer in a

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Speaker 2: heavy metal band when she's a student. And the other

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Speaker 2: thing is she's a big fan of Margaret Thatcher. She

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Speaker 2: likes to style herself on her even to wearing blue suits,

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Speaker 2: and even some of her economic policies are sort of

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Speaker 2: a little bit reminiscent of Thatcherism. So she's also a proteget.

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Speaker 2: The former prime minister Shinto Abe, and he was Japan's

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Speaker 2: longest serving prime minister, and since he went, we haven't

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Speaker 2: really had anyone who's been around for more than a year.

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Speaker 2: So the hope is that she will do better than that.

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Speaker 2: A lot of talk about the revival of abonomics. If

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Speaker 2: you remember, abonomics was all about trying to spend a

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Speaker 2: lot of money to boost the economy. The Bank of

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Speaker 2: Japan cut interest rates into negative territory. I think the

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Speaker 2: last thing Japan needs right now is another dose of abonomics.

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Speaker 2: In any way, there's no way the Bank of Japan

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Speaker 2: can cut interest rates, let alone into negative territory. It's

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Speaker 2: actually looking at putting them up at the moment. But

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Speaker 2: what it does signal is that Japan's going to become

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Speaker 2: see a lot more focus on trying to boost growth

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Speaker 2: through borrowing, through maybe some reforms of the Japanese economy,

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Speaker 2: like trying to get more women into the workforce, like

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Speaker 2: trying to reform the market to make it easier for

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Speaker 2: foreign skilled foreign workers to come in, all things that

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Speaker 2: it needs to do, but not ebonomics. We're not going

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Speaker 2: to see the Bank of Japan start cutting interest rates.

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Speaker 1: Interesting. Hey, thank you very much, Peter, I appreciate it.

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Speaker 1: Look after yourself, Peter Lewis, and good luck in Macau.

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Speaker 1: Peter Lewis, Asia Business.

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Speaker 2: Corresponding For more from Hither Duplessy Alan Drive, listen live

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