Pacific Common Market Mooted In Japan

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29747, 14 February 1962, Page 13

Pacific Common Market Mooted In Japan

(N .Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 13.

Japan, Burma and India might combine into a Pacific common market, th e leader of a Japanese trade mission said in San Francisco last night.

•The business man, Mr Chikera Kurata, the chalr-

man of the board of Japan's largest electronics firm. Hitachi, ltd., said that the market was still in the theoretical stage.

He told a press conference that at present the United States was not included in plans foi an eventual Pacific common market.

“Opinion is divided in Japan whether the United States will be in on this.” Mr Kurata said.

He did not say whether Australia or New Zealand had been mentioned in discussion about a possible Pacific trading bloc. Both Australia and New Zealand are expected by trade observers to seek more trade in the Pacific region and Asia after Britain’s decision to apply for membership of the European Common Market Joint Effort

Mr Kurata said his group of 10 industrialists would confer in Washington with the head of the Agency for International Development (Mr Fowler Hamilton) on a proposal to combine American and Japanese capital in a joint effort to raise the economy of squth-east Asian countries.

He said he could not say that the effort would be a first step towards a Pacific common market but felt it was necessary before such a venture could be realised because of the present uneven

economic structure of the whole region. Mr Kurata pleaded for freer American policy toward Japanese imports, “if the United States wants Japan to be a friendly partner in the emerging Pacific community ” “It is unfair.” he said, “for Japan to carry out its wide liberalisation programme of imports while highly industrialised countries in Western Europe and North America maintain barriers of various forms against the inflow of Japanese goods .. in spite of the fact that Japan buys more from them than it sells.”

The Japanese Industrialist will leave for Chicago tomorrow.