ABC Business Daily

Thailand's massive car manufacturing industry has seen the country nicknamed the "Detroit of Asia".

But China's electric vehicle boom is shaking up the Thai automotive sector, with Chinese brands dominating the EV market and local manufacturers pushing for tariffs to protects themselves as vehicle production falls. 

Meanwhile in Australia, the economics of going electric are shifting again as oil prices come under renewed pressure and EV sales climb. 

On ABC Business Daily, Carrington Clarke and ABC Business Reporter Lin Lin explain how consumer behaviour and government policy turned Thailand's car market upside down, and unpack what we can learn from it in Australia. 

Got a burning business question?

We'd love to hear your questions! If there’s business and economic news that has you stumped or you'd like further insight into, we're here to help. Send a short voice recording to Carrington and the team at [email protected] and we'll attempt to answer it.

The people building the world’s most powerful AI systems are starting to warn that development may be moving too fast.

Some want a slowdown and stronger safeguards. Others, including Donald Trump, are dismissing those warnings as a “hoax” that could hand China an advantage.

But underneath the safety debate is a huge economic story too - billions in investment, rising debt and enormous expectations riding on the AI boom.

Carrington Clarke and ABC Business Correspondent David Taylor unpack what’s driving the pushback, what it could mean for Australia, and why the US 10-year Treasury yield breaking above 5 per cent is another sign that global markets are feeling the pressure on ABC Business Daily.

Got a burning business question?

We'd love to hear your questions! If there’s business and economic news that has you stumped or you'd like further insight into, we're here to help. Send a short voice recording to Carrington and the team at [email protected] and we'll attempt to answer it.

Brent crude is back above US$100 a barrel, with a second critical global energy choke-point now looking increasingly vulnerable. At the same time, Australia has its own problem to solve. 

The Reserve Bank of Australia says inflation remains the country’s biggest economic concern - but some of the pressures pushing prices higher, including another jump in oil, are coming from forces Australian interest rates can’t control.

So how dangerous is this latest oil spike - and are borrowers being asked to carry the cost of inflation they didn’t create?

Carrington Clarke and ABC Business Editor Michael Janda break it all down on ABC Business Daily.

Listen to our chat with Satyajit Das on if we're heading for a "Bondmageddon" here.

Got a burning business question?

We'd love to hear your questions! If there’s business and economic news that has you stumped or you'd like further insight into, we're here to help. Send a short voice recording to Carrington and the team at [email protected] and we'll attempt to answer it.

Donald Trump is rewriting the rules of global trade, using tariffs as political weapons and up-ending decades of economic orthodoxy.

At the same time, trade routes themselves have become central to the war in Iran, with the Strait of Hormuz sitting at the heart of the conflict.

So what does someone who has spent his career understanding the politics and economics of trade make of all this disruption?

Former Australian trade negotiator and author of Why Politicians Lie About Trade, Dmitry Grozoubinski joins Alan Kohler on That’s Business with Alan Kohler to unpack Trump’s trade war, Mark Carney’s retaliation from Canada, and what the upheaval could mean for Australia and the global economy.

Got a burning business question?

Send a short voice recording to the ABC Business Daily team at [email protected]

Bathla Group has collapsed owing billions, with hundreds of projects caught up in the fallout.

But when a developer that big goes under, the bigger question is what it tells us about the wider market. Was Bathla simply a company that grew too fast and took on too much debt - or is it a sign of deeper pressure across property and construction?

In this special episode of ABC Business Daily, ABC Business reporter Lin Lin is joined by AMP Chief Economist Shane Oliver to unpack how higher interest rates, rising construction costs and the growth of private credit are reshaping the industry.

Listen to our chat with Satyajit Das here.

Read Lin Lin's reporting on Bathla Group here.

Got a burning business question?

We'd love to hear your questions! If there’s business and economic news that has you stumped or you'd like further insight into, we're here to help. Send a short voice recording to Carrington and the team at [email protected] and we'll attempt to answer it.

Nike has lost its edge.

More than US$230 billion has been wiped from its market value since its 2021 peak, and its share price is now back around levels last seen more than a decade ago.

For a brand that has dominated global sport for generations, that’s a remarkable fall. So what went wrong? Was it China, competition, brand dilution - or simply a business that stopped setting the pace?

ABC Business reporters Lin Lin and Dan Ziffer unpack how Nike ended up being dropped from the top 100 companies on the US share market, and what its slide tells us about the risks facing even the biggest global brands, on ABC Business Daily.

Got a burning business question?

We'd love to hear your questions! If there’s business and economic news that has you stumped or you'd like further insight into, we're here to help. Send a short voice recording to Carrington and the team at [email protected] and we'll attempt to answer it.

One Nation wants Australians paying rent or a mortgage to take more of their superannuation home now - but what could that cost them later?

The proposal has ignited a political fight, with One Nation Treasury spokesperson Barnaby Joyce arguing people should be trusted with their own money. 

But behind the rhetoric are much bigger economic questions about retirement balances, inflation, interest rates and Australia’s $4.4 trillion super system.

ABC Business Editor Michael Janda and ABC Business Correspondent David Taylor unpack what One Nation is actually proposing, what we learned from the COVID-era experiment with early super access - and whether the numbers behind this latest pitch stack up - on ABC Business Daily.

Listen to Alan Kohler's conversation with AustralianSuper head Paul Schroder here.

Listen to the political breakdown of One Nation's super plan on our sister podcast Politics Now here.

Listen to our chat with Satyajit Das on if we're heading for a "Bondmageddon" here.

Got a burning business question?

We'd love to hear your questions! If there’s business and economic news that has you stumped or you'd like further insight into, we're here to help. Send a short voice recording to Carrington and the team at [email protected] and we'll attempt to answer it.

Satyajit Das thinks another major global financial crisis might be coming - and soon.

He was warning about dangerous debt structures well before the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. Now, with inflation still sticky, interest rates elevated, debt piling up and huge amounts of money pouring into AI, he thinks the pressure is building again. But what breaks first?

In this special episode of ABC Business Daily, former banker and financial commentator Satyajit Das joins ABC Business Editor Michael Janda to unpack the risk of “Bondmageddon”, whether the world has become too dependent on cheap money, and how the AI boom could become another fault line in the financial system.

Got a burning business question?

We'd love to hear your questions! If there’s business and economic news that has you stumped or you'd like further insight into, we're here to help. Send a short voice recording to Carrington and the team at [email protected] and we'll attempt to answer it.

WiseTech Global is one of Australia's great technology success stories, running CargoWise, the operating system for global trade.

But in recent years it's been engulfed in scandal amid grave allegations against founder and former CEO Richard White, which he strenuously denies. On top of that, the company's facing a changing tech and trade landscape thanks to AI.

WiseTech's new(ish) CEO Zubin Appoo talks through how to pull a company out of a crisis, and debates whether artificial intelligence will change the game - just like the internet did for Alan's old newspaper jobs.

Zubin Appoo, CEO of WiseTech and Alan Kohler unpack it all on That's Business with Alan Kohler.

Got a burning business question?

Send a short voice recording to the ABC Business Daily team at [email protected]

Australia’s biggest retailers have opened their books - and the numbers tell a pretty revealing story.

Woolworths and Coles remain firmly in control, but the numbers show their strategies are shifting. Online sales are surging, shoppers are hunting around for value, Aldi’s growth has slowed, and smaller players are fighting over an increasingly narrow slice of the market.

In this special episode of ABC Business Daily, Carrington Clarke is joined by Barrenjoey retail analyst Tom Kierath for a deep dive into what the latest results from Woolworths, Coles, Aldi and others are really telling us.

Got a burning business question?

We'd love to hear your questions! If there’s business and economic news that has you stumped or you'd like further insight into, we're here to help. Send a short voice recording to Carrington and the team at [email protected] and we'll attempt to answer it.