Japanese to ease trade curbs?

Press, 27 April 1984, Page 8

Japanese to ease trade curbs?

NZPA-Reuter Tokyo Japan is about to announce a broad easing of trade curbs in response to growing international pressure for access to its lucrative domestic markets, according to official sources. Tariff cuts on about 1200 industrial, agricultural, and mineral items would be made ahead of agreed schedules, the sources said. Changes are promised in some of the regulations which now impede penetration of foreign goods. Also promised in the Government package is liberalisation of Japan's financial and capital markets to facilitate entry of foreign operators and to bring the yen out into the open as a more freely traded international currency. The moves come after

Sowing unrest in the tited States and Western Europe about Japan's everrising trade surplus. This year the figure is expected to reach SUS 34 billion. Political sources said the Prime Minister. Mr Nakasone, had been prodding reluctant Cabinet Ministers to approve the liberalisation package by warning that Japan's mighty export trade might otherwise suffer from retaliatory protective measures.’ The tariff cuts, originally set to begin between 1986 and 1988, have been brought forward to April 1 next year, the sources said. The package includes some of the 158 items on which the United States had specifically requested cuts. One is farm machinery, whose 6 per cent tariff will be eliminated.

Of the other cuts. 128 had been requested by the European Community and 52 by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the sources said. The Government has also promised to liberalise tobacco imports, which last year accounted for only 1.8 per cent of Japanese cigarette consumption. Another move will be to simplify inspection procedures for imported cars and accept foreign inspection data on items such as medicine, agricultural chemicals, and electrical appliances. In previous discussions on inspection of medicines. Japanese negotiators had argued that separate standards were necessary because Japanese people reacted differently from foreigners to certain kinds of drugs.