months of this year. these are the first set of quarterly gdp figures since the end of the country s strict covid poilcy in december. this boosted retail sales, which were up over 10% on this time last year. also a huge expansion in travel, with some 45 million air passengers taking trips last month. all of this has helped spark positivity from investors, with groups like citi upgrading their china growth forecast to 6.1% that s well over china s own targets. joining me now is rory green, chief china economist at consultants ts lombard. these numbers look strong. is it a short term bounce or was it more sustainable. it short-term bounce or was it more sustainable- sustainable. it is generally fairly sustainable sustainable. it is generally fairly sustainable for sustainable. it is generally fairly sustainable for the sustainable. it is generally fairly sustainable for the remainder i sustainable. it is generally fairly sustainable for the remainder of 2024. what sust
prices are rising faster than they have done for a0 years in the uk. the bank of england says the recent increases in energy hills, which are set to be three times more than they were a year ago, will drive inflation the rate at which prices rise even higher, to 13%. uk inflation hit that a0 year high injune, reaching 9.a%. july s figures are released in a few hours and there is a real chance that headline uk inflation could hit double figures. joining me now is liz martins, uk economist, hsbc welcome and it is good to have you on the programme. what do you on the programme. what do you think? do you think we will hit double digits today and if so how significant is that? that is our forecast that we get to exactly 10% year on year injuly and some of our fellow economists don t think it is quite that bad they say nine point 8% perhaps but 9.8, ten, these are incredible figures that even a few months ago we would have found hard to believe. yesterday we had the labour mark
look, they also threw it here. and she said, oh no, i m really upset, they shouldn t do that. don t put on the floor, put it in the bin. my initial thought was to say, don t touch it, it s dirty, leave it but then i thought i should give heran example. but eva and her mama are keen to set an example to inspire others. because doing small things together, we can have a great impact. if a two year old knows where to put the rubbish, maybe other people will do the same, and we ll have a great impact together. for more stories from across the uk, head to the bbc news website. you re live with bbc news. turning to china now because while the removal of its foreign minister has been making headlines, beijing has also named a new governor for its central bank. pan gongsheng takes the helm at a time when the chinese economy is seeing a slump in activity. 0ur asia business reporterjoao da silva is following the story. joao, tell us more
0ur asia business reporterjoao da silva has the details, on that market drop. google shares dropped about 2.6% overnight on that new york times story and that report really underscores the disruptive impact that this race to integrate artificial intelligence could have on well established businesses like google. i mean, billions of dollars are on the line here for the tech giant. samsung is, of course, one of the leading manufacturers of mobile phones and if these reports are confirmed and samsung is switching from google to the microsoft owned bing as the default search engine on its phones, then that would have a huge impact on google s margins. it is notjust about google s contract with samsung, which according to the report is worth about $3 billion, but it is about eyeballs. google for decades has been the dominant search engine with about 80% market share. that brings in huge advertising revenues. this market movement really shows