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Business Matters: OPEC to Cut Production

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OPEC to Cut Production, Prices Spike

01/12/2016 GMT

OPEC to Cut Production

BBC World Service - Business Matters, OPEC to Cut Production

OPEC finally get its act together and cuts production in a bid to boost oil prices

OPEC plans to cut production in a bid to boost global oil prices, and a billionaire Saudi prince calls for an end to the ban on women driving, because it is economically damaging.

OPEC - the group of oil producing countries that controls about 80% of the world's oil reserves - has got its act together and announced a cut in production designed to boost oil prices. It follows two years of continually low prices which have hit oil producing countries hard, and in the hours since the announcement oil prices have surged by as much as 10%. Barclays oil analyst Miswin Mahesh explains how the various countries overcame their differences.

Saudi Arabia is not only the world's largest oil producer - it is also the only place in the world where women are banned from driving. But billionaire Saudi prince Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has called for an end to the ban on driving, claiming it is damaging to the kingdom's economy. Reem Assad, an investment adviser based in the Saudi port city of Jeddah, gives her views on the prince's public statement.

President-elect Donald Trump has tweeted that he will step back from running his private business empire whilst he is in the White House. And, he has named his Treasury Secretary - the man who will run US Government financial policy as Steve Mnuchin - a former investment banker from Goldman Sachs. Mr. Mnuchin was Donald Trump's campaign finance chairman and was recently profiled by Bloomberg's Zachary Mider, who told the BBC's Alex Ritson what he learned about the man who will be in charge of US economic policy.

Plus, we explore why Unesco has given Belgian beer a special status. Professor Kevin Verstrepen, from the University of Leuven, explains just what is so great about Belgian beer.

We are joined by guests Elmira Bayrasli, co-founder of Foreign Policy Interrupted, in New York and Tony Nash, chief economist at Complete Intelligence in Singapore.

(Photo: Saudi Arabia's energy minister Khalid al-Falih (bottom right) attends a meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, at the OPEC headquarters in Vienna, Austria in November 2016. Credit: Joe Klamar/AFP/Getty Images)

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