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Episode details

World Service,14 Feb 2014,28 mins

Italy awaits its new Prime Minister

World Business Report

Available for over a year

Enrico Letta formally quits as Italian Prime Minister after his Democratic Party withdrew its support, paving the way for Mayor of Florence Matteo Renzi to succeed him. We ask how likely it is that any successor can lift Italy out of its economic malaise. We also have a report from neighbouring France on the continued challenges for French businesses. The BBC's Rory Cellan-Jones talks about the sale of messaging app service Viber to Japanese firm Rakuten - and what it tells us about how popular messaging technology has become. And we have our regular review of the week in business and economics with Michael Casey, senior columnist for the Wall Street Journal in New York and Mark Gilbert, London bureau chief for Bloomberg.

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