Japan fails to respond in talks

Press, 22 February 1978, Page 1

Japan fails to respond in talks

P A Wellington No progress was made in talks yesterday between the former Japanese Minister of Agriculture (Mr Zenko Suzuki), the Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon), and. the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Taiboys), on better access for New Zealand farm oroducts to Japan. “At the moment the position has not advanced at all,” Mr Muldoon said. Mr Suzuki who is in New Zealand at the invitation of the Government, met Mr Taiboys and senior New Zealand officials yesterday morning and saw Mr Muldoon in the afternoon.

Mr Suzuki handed the Prime Minister a two-page letter from the Japanese Prime Minister (Mr Fukuda) but Mr Muldoon told reporters after their meeting: “It was really a personal letter of greetings rather than a letter dealing with the specific matters we are discussing.” The Japanese Government on Monday gave the New- Zealand Government a formal response to representations made by Mr Taiboys when he was in Tokyo last October. But Mr Muldoon said: "It did not add anything of substance. I have indicated to Mr Suzuki that we are disappointed in the contents and we regard them as an inadequate response.” Mr Muldoon said that he had discussed Japan’s agriculture generally and New Zealand’s hopes for selling more on the Japanese market. There was at present a broad balance of trade between the two countries unlike the trade situation between Japan and the United States and the E.E.C. where the balance was heavily in Japan’s favour. Mr Suzuki said that trace between New Zealand and Japan was generally going well and Japan looked to New Zealand as a supplier of its increasing food needs. Of Mr Suzuki’s statement that Japan would buy more food from New Zealand in the future, Mr Muldoon said he had pointed out that New Zealand had been trying to get better access to the Japanese market for the last 17 years — "and that is a long time. ’ he said.

Asked what Mr Suzuki’s response to that had been, he replied: “He smiled. He accepted that it was rather a long time.” Mr Muldoon made it clear he was not impressed by Mr Suzuki’s argument that Japan-New Zealand trade was more in balance than his country’s trade with the United States and the E.E.C. Mr Muldoon said the balance was in favour of Japan but, what was more important, New Zealand’s increased sales to Japan had been in products such as aluminium, iron sands, and wood pulp. "They are not things we have been talking about,” he said. Continued on Page 3