State of emergency in Panama
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Hello and welcome to World Business Report from the BBC World Service. I'm David Harper and coming up on this edition in just a second we're going to hear more about Panama's banana production industry, one of the largest in the world, and find out how they're coping after strikes have disrupted exports.

We've also been hearing about a significant drop in profits for Timu. Can the cut price Chinese retailer cut prices even further? And we're looking back to 1975 when the West African trading block ECOWAS was officially founded. And we'll find out what it's meant for people and businesses in the block. With an ID card, the ECOWAS biometric ID card, you can move all the way from Lagos to Dakar without visa. We know this is no mean feat.

But first of all, it's not often that a disruption to the production of bananas results in a state of emergency being declared. The governments of Panama have done just that, though, in the region of Bocas del Toro, where output has ground to a halt. 5,000 people working for the US banana producer Chiquita joined a nationwide strike in protest at pension reforms and were then sacked by the company. A court in Panama has ruled the strike as illegal, and it's had a significant effect in one of the top banana exporters in the world.

I've been out of work for four weeks now, and how am I going to support myself if I'm just at home? It's because of the government that we're here. It's not how we want it to be, but we're fighting a law that the government knows has affected our workers and our future generations. That's why we're fighting.

Well, BBC Mundo journalist William Marquez joins us now. William, it's quite a lead up to the current situation that we're seeing. Can you just give us an idea of what has been going on to get us to this point?

Well, the banana workers joined other trades, teachers, doctors, construction workers, and indigenous groups in a strike that started precisely a month ago. And they were all against the reforms to...

schemes and the social security. And there's been a blockage of almost 30 roads. And there's been no classes. There's a lack of fuel in some places in that area, in that province of Boca del Toro. And there's

been some confrontation with the police as well. And so the government yesterday declared the state of emergency, but they say, however, that they will not attempt to lift the blockade. And these workers have now been sacked by Chiquita?

Yes, Chiquita says that the workers have stopped working unjustifiably and that they've abandoned the plantations with a great, and they say irreparable or irreversible effect and that they've lost up to $75 million in revenue.

And they have sacked 4,900 workers. These are day workers and they've cancelled their contracts. And these are skilled workers, presumably, that Chiquita needs to keep their production up. Are they going to be able to find alternative workers to get production working again?

That's the problem there. This is an area that is dominated, basically, by the banana growing plantations. And the government said that they've gone there, as I said, not to lift the blockade by force, but to try and motivate the community and try and find employment.

William, thank you very much for bringing us up to date there with what we've been seeing in that northern province of Panama. We're joined by Alistair Smith, international coordinator at Banana Link, which is an NGO working for fair trade in the banana industry. William, thank you very much. Alistair, sorry. Thank you very much for being with us today. I mean, it's not often we talk about such a big disruption in the banana industry. Is this quite a significant layoff?

It is a significant layoff, not just because Panama is, in terms of its volume, over 100 years has been one of the important banana exporters, but because...

There's a whole threat to 6,000 people, 7,000 people directly employed and multiply that by five or six in terms of the number of people who depend on that income in an area where there's very, very little other employment. So huge potential social and economic effects on the country, but also one of the industries where...

relatively decent working conditions and good industrial relations have prevailed with a strong union and a good collective bargaining agreement that's been a bit of a model for other countries. So if Chiquita were to close, it would be a very, very big problem. Well, I was going to say, you say good industrial relations. Obviously, this has developed into a problem at the moment.

It's developed into a problem because of a national issue, because of an issue over pension social security reform and a number of other issues at national level in Panama, which the banana workers support because part of the problem is to do with their own pension reforms that was a law that was repealed relatively recently.

That's why they're part of the movement. But there's a whole package of things and they're asking that there be a national solution to the package rather than just their issue. And to look at the situation for Chiquita at the moment, are they going to be able to, are they likely to rehire workers? Are they going to be able to find alternative workers? Are they likely to maybe up sticks and move somewhere else? I think they're going to have to look at rehiring. They cannot do easily without Panama workers.

It's their own production and they have a very long history there and they have a lot of skilled workers that they can't just replace like that. Even if banana workers are not paid as highly skilled workers, the skills required to work in a banana plantation are such that people cannot just be replaced like that. So I think Chiquita will have to look at re-employing people as soon as the strike action is resolved.

Alistair Smith, thank you very much for joining us. Alistair Smith, International Coordinator at BananaLink, for just giving us a bit of an update into what we're seeing there and what it might mean. We're joined for the programme today by Russ Mould, who's Investment Director at AJ Bell. Russ, great to have you with us again. Thank you, David. It's not, as I said at the top of the programme, it's not something we talk about very often, the idea of a disruption in the banana industry, but it's going to have, with them being such a big exporter, it's going to have wider implications. Yeah, I mean, one thing that...

financial markets do look at is the price of food and the cost of food because of the knock-on effect it has upon the consumers and also you know and the employment that it provides for and the employment that that industry provides for its workers with the benefits that we heard there about Alistair and how that feeds through to families and to other industries so

And at the moment, I think the world, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Index organisation is showing that food prices are up about 7% year on year. I'm sure that bananas won't move that on their own, but it's a complicating factor in an industry that's constantly open to things such as weather, let alone industrial relations. Yeah, definitely part of the picture. Let's move away from Panama for a moment because we've been hearing today that the Chinese discount retailer Timu...

or their owners at least, have announced a large reduction in profits. We can hear more on this from our Asia business reporter, Katie Silver, who's been taking a look at some of the reasons why this might have happened. It's a company that has seen huge growth in recent years. So in announcing these results, they said that they had made about 15 billion yuan or 2 billion US dollars in profits in the first three months of this year. That's almost half of what it made the same time the year prior. And it comes as PDD faces challenges both at home and abroad.

Now, at home in China, there's weak consumer spending, and that's seen PDD having to battle out with its rivals like Alibaba and JD.com. That's caused heavy discounting across the board as they fight to maintain market share. And then, of course, there are those challenges from abroad, from both sides of the Atlantic. From the US and Europe, they're both looking at how to crack down on the shipment of small parcels, which so far haven't attracted tax. Now, earlier this month,

the Trump administration ended the de minimis exemption and that allowed parcels that were worth less than $800 to enter the US without being hit by import duties. It's currently in the middle of a 90-day pause on that and the taxes are due to be charged again in early August. We also heard last week from the EU, which is proposing charging a flat fee of about

two euros on small parcels that arrive from China. About 90% of these come from China, many from the likes of Temu and its rival, Xi'an. In reporting this profit drop, PDD's chairman laid the blame at what he called the radical change in external policy environments, such as tariffs.

and said that the trade war had created significant pressure for our merchants. And of course, you might remember Temu announced it was going to stop selling goods from China directly to US customers and indeed move some of its production onto American shores. Katie Silver with just some of the backstory behind that. Russ, I mean, given that they're a business that sell things very cheaply, presumably with very tight margins, do you think they can afford to stand up to some of this competition and other issues?

I think it'll be very hard for them. They're clearly trying to find ways around it by, again, stimulating domestic demand through investment in their platform and sales and marketing. And they're also trying to, to a degree, give in to President Trump, by the sounds of it, and build...

production facilities in the United States but I can't believe that making clothes in the US will be as cheap as it is in China no and speaking of clothes talking about discount retailers we've been hearing about the fast fashion firm Sheen who were planning to float on the London Stock Exchange now it looks like that's not going to happen

No, it seemed... Well, New York initially was their hope, and I think the political situation meant that was ruled out. Then they've tried London. The British regulator welcomed the prospects after a thorough check this spring, but now the Chinese regulator, the Securities and Regulatory Commission, does not seem to have given permission to Xi and to list in London, so now it's going towards Hong Kong. A bit of a blow for the company, because it wanted to...

to go into its chairman, you know, subject itself to global transparency and prove that its sourcing policies are ethical, that it looks after its labour force and made allegations to the contrary. So that's a bit of a blow to its strategy there. And from London's point of view, some will be disappointed it's not coming to this table for prestige reasons, some because it may have been an interesting investment, but others may be pleased, again, because of that

those allegations about sourcing of cotton and labour. And just very quickly, we've also heard today about taxi drivers in Madrid on striking protests about new licences awarded. This is for Cabify, a similar ride-hailing app to Uber.

We've been hearing from some of the drivers, but this is by no means the first opposition to ride-hailing apps in various cities. Can anyone hold back the tide on this? It's very difficult. I think even places where Uber was banned for a while or its licence revoked, like London and Barcelona, I think in the end it got its licence back, albeit after a bit of a struggle. And in the end, companies like Cabify, they're looking to disrupt the incumbents. That's what they're all about. Very interesting indeed. Russ Mould from AJ Bell. We'll be back with you later in the...

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Now, exactly 50 years ago today, heads of state from 15 West African countries met in Nigeria to sign the Treaty of Lagos, establishing ECOWAS, the Economic Community of West African States. The aim was to promote economic and social development across West Africa, and it's had some successes. However, the long-term aim of a shared currency hasn't become a reality, not yet at least. And earlier this year, Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger officially withdrew from the bloc. Well,

Well, the current leaders of ECOWAS member nations are meeting in Lagos today, not just as a commemoration of its history, but also to discuss the future for the bloc. Chrissie Walker is in Nigeria for us and can tell us a bit more. Chris, I mentioned that single currency project. This has been a long term ambition of the bloc. Why have we not seen it happen yet?

Well, yeah, the single currency project has been in the works for over 30 years, but now we've been told that it's still on the table and is expected to be launched on 2000, I mean, yes, 2027. But however, I've been speaking to the president of the ECOWAS commission who told me that some of the countries were unable to meet up with ECOWAS

some of the requirements. So what they've decided to do is to see how many countries can pilot the program. And then hopefully those other countries that are not strong enough will be able to join later. So that's the reason why they have shifted the launch date to two years from now.

Pretty similar to how the euro got underway many years ago. Talking about some successes that they've had, how much impact has the protocol on free movement that we're talking about? That has been a bit of a boom in trade. Well, yeah. In terms of people travelling or moving, well, they are the experts.

It's a bit easy because I'm like myself. I've traveled around West Africa, another part of Africa. And in West Africa, we can move from one country to another. And basically you show your passport and you're allowed to go. But again,

Land is a different issue. We've seen a situation where there have been border posts where people claim that they have been harassed. I've also spoken to some Ekoa citizens who told me that they were harassed traveling by road from one country to the other.

Again, in terms of trade, this has also affected trade because it's not also very easy for people to move goods from one location to the other. The other problem is the non-availability of goods

You know, infrastructure, transportation infrastructure, the roads are not very good. And the mobility issue, especially evacuating produce, for instance, from a location of farming to the urban centers and then across the borders is still a big challenge. And the ECOWAS president told me they are trying very hard to build a kind of transportation

transnational highway that could alleviate the problem of transporting goods. And also, I should ask what people think, aside from the currency union, about the future of ECOWAS, because we've seen the membership change a few times since 1975. And of course, earlier this year, those three countries leaving the bloc, how does this affect the remaining members?

Well, right now, ECOWAS has 12 members instead of 15, with Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger pulling out to form the Alliance of Sahel States. Now, a lot of people in West Africa are a bit jittery. They are sort of wondering if the ropes or the strings that held...

the ECOWAS block together could still hold because right now there are some turbulence in some of the member states, political crisis, and many people see what's happening with these other Teresa Hill states as a recipe for...

encouraging other states to break away, especially those that are still under military rule. So I will tell you that people are not very optimistic here.

But many people are watching. And as the leaders of ECOWAS are meeting today, people are expecting that they will be discussing how they will ensure that the bloc is held together from disintegration. So that's how the situation has been like up till now. Chris, great to hear your thoughts on that. Chris Iwako in Nigeria for us on the past, present and future of ECOWAS.

Now smartphones, electric vehicles and wind turbines are just some of the essential modern technology that wouldn't work without rare earth minerals. It is an industry that's been heavily dominated by China and in recent weeks they've increased export restrictions amid growing trade tensions. Like the US, Europe is trying to reduce its dependence on Beijing but it currently only has two plants that can process these minerals.

The biggest is owned by the chemicals giant Solvay in La Rochelle in western France. And our reporter Jonathan Josephs has been given exclusive access to the site for BBC Business Daily. A crowd gathers to take pictures as the boss cuts the blue ribbon. Solvay's newly inaugurated production line in La Rochelle is the front line of Europe's fight for rare earth freedom.

It could be key to cutting dependence on China. So with our safety gear on, we're heading out to go and have a look at what goes on here. The sky is nice and blue here on the west coast of France. It's a beautiful sunny morning. On my right are a host of silver metal cylinders sprouting about 20 metres into the air, neatly arranged in rose pipes flowing into them and out of them.

Good morning, I'm Florian Gounod. I'm a production site manager here in La Rochelle. Florian, how long have you been working here? Almost three years. Have you got used to the smell of all these chemicals now? What smell? Basically, what we do here in La Rochelle is we separate and we purify rare earth elements. Objective of the liquid-liquid separation unit will be to purify cerium on one side, lantanium on the other side.

It's basically like if you have a multi-fruit juice with orange juice, apple juice, pineapple juice. The objective of the liquid separation unit will be to separate apple juice on one side, orange juice on the other side, and so on. We're stepping inside to a huge room.

must be almost the size of a football pitch here. It's row after row of conjoined metal vats. These vats are about a meter high and this is where a lot of that separation happens.

This is the only plant outside of China that can separate all the 17 different rare earths. There are different processes for each. They're essential for so much modern technology, including the permanent magnets this plant is now shifting its focus to. They're in things such as this speaker you're hearing me through, as well as electric vehicles and wind turbines. It's why Donald Trump has pushed them up the political agenda. The EU was entirely dependent on China.

But Solvay's chief executive, Philippe Carin, told me the aim is for 30% of Europe's needs to come from here by the end of the decade.

Keep in mind that we can use recycled material. So of course today it's still the beginning because you don't have a lot of end-of-life electric motors and so on, but this will develop and by 2030, 35, you will have more and more material and this can represent a big part of the sourcing. What we want to develop here is a process that is able to take any type of sources. Today there is no source coming from Europe.

but we have from Brazil, from Canada, from Australia, and in the future, maybe Europe. But how important is it that those raw materials are dug out of the ground here in Europe? We need to have this option, I think. It's absolutely necessary to have our own mines, not necessarily a lot of them, because again, we can have a mix. The sound you can hear is the kiln.

The first thing that strikes you as you walk into this building is the intense heat. It's a huge tube lying on its side, looking a bit like a space rocket being taken to the launch pad. It's made of steel on the outside and brick on the inside. I'm Sébastien Scarcy. I'm the site director of Solvay-la-Rocher. Why do you need a kiln when you're refining rare earths?

At the end of the separation stage, we have liquid. For this liquid, the finished product is a powder. So we need to transform the liquid, the rare earth nitrates, into rare earth oxide, which is a powder. For now, about 90% of those processed powders are coming from China. It's where 70% of rare earth mining happens. That domination is the result of many years of government support.

Now some Western rivals also want a helping hand, such as Rafael Moreno. The boss of Virdis Mining hopes the raw materials he's digging up in Brazil could soon end up being processed here in France.

There's the regulatory part of getting projects approved, there's that side of things, but it's really the financing. It's that support financially in order to get the better projects off the ground. It doesn't matter where that support comes from, that's the key right now. In tightly controlled conditions, machines package process rare earths into huge white sacks for permanent magnet manufacturers. But can new EU laws and some financial help from the French government really reduce foreign dependence for supplies?

Benjamin Garzeau is President Macron's advisor on strategic metals. We will need in the next 20 years more and more of these railroads for electrical vehicles and also renewable energy, mainly offshore wind power.

So it's very important for the European economy because we have to build a sovereign and resilient economy. What are the risks that you are trying to overcome in terms of making sure that Europe can stand on its own two feet with rare earths? Having a dependency on a single source, it's dangerous because you cannot know what will happen to this source for various reasons. It can be geopolitical reasons, but it can also be, you know, natural disaster or whatever.

President Macron's advisor on strategic metals, Benjamin Galzeau, ending that report from Jonathan Josephs. And a reminder that Business Daily is looking into the critical mineral sector all this week. You can listen. Just search for Business Daily wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, is still with us. And this is something that

The markets are watching very carefully, obviously, with the current dependence on China. Were exposed to any political changes there? Yeah, I think this issue of supply chains, David, has been with us ever since COVID and lockdowns, given globalisation has resulted in increasingly complex and in some ways brittle supply chains. So,

It's been an issue that's been ever since then. And then the Russian and the Ukrainian war and sanctions against oil and gas and other Russian materials. And now the Americans raising the stakes again with their geopolitical battle with China and the president's interest in everywhere from Greenland to the Ukraine as a result. Let's stay with the US for a moment because we saw last night the latest test launch of SpaceX's Starship craft from Texas, which appeared to start quite well.

One, two, three.

But the rocket later span out of control and failed to release the test satellites that it was carrying. We're not going to come down exactly where we would have had nothing happened. But we do clear a tremendous amount of space out in the Indian Ocean in the event that we run into this. We understand that there are always risks, essentially, with these flight tests, with the hardware. But we don't really accept any compromise when it comes to protecting people.

Despite the failure, the company says it's brought them more success than any other test launch and provided valuable data. We've heard this from SpaceX quite a lot, that they embrace their failures, but there must be a limit to how many times you can fail, given the huge cost of missions like this. I mean, they've had a lot of successes with previous Falcon rocket launches, so I'm sure they're definitely still building on those. Starship has had three major failures.

I think they'll just accuse us of having a very British attitude if we focus on just the Phillies and say that they should pack in. And I think they will continue to press ahead. And in the end, you do have the backing of Mr. Musk, who do have some very deep pockets. Well, speaking of Mr. Musk, we've heard sales figures for Elon Musk's other big company or one of his other big companies, Tesla.

have been getting less than positive. In fact, we've been hearing this for a while. We have, and in Europe, it's now been overtaken on a pure electric vehicle basis by BYD of China, and a lot of Europeans have passed it as well. And BYD, having now caught up in Europe, is pressing its advantage in China with substantial price cuts for trading deals, so its cheapest model now costing less than $8,000.

So Tesla is definitely facing competitive and technological threat on many fronts. That's why I'm sure a lot of shareholders will be hoping that he stays out of American politics and focuses a lot more on Tesla and SpaceX and his many other projects. And just quickly on the subject of BYD, they've been facing accusations of illegal working practices in Brazil. Yeah, I guess we'll have to wait to find out what the Brazilian authorities have discovered there. But BYD will be looking to use overseas plants as a means of penetrating markets, and it's clearly going to be held to account

in terms of its standards and practices when it does so. Russ, thank you very much for joining us for your insights today. We should say that BYD did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the BBC, but has previously said that it has zero tolerance for violations of human rights and labour laws. This is World Business Report. A reminder, there's plenty online, bbc.com slash news, including the idea of a British supermarket with VAR-style camera replays at self-checkouts, just in case you didn't scan everything correctly.

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