Japan rejects charge of bias

Date: 16/11/1995

By Tim Jones

EUROPEAN companies should be assured that the aggressive tactics used by the Clinton administration to prise open Japanese markets will not lead to favouritism for US goods and services, according to one of Japan's leading industrialists.

“If there is any agreement between Japan and the US, it should not give the Europeans unnecessary concern,” says Tadahiro Sekimoto, chairman of consumer electronics giant NEC Corporation.

Sekimoto headed an 11-strong group of top Japanese businessmen who visited Brussels last week for two days of talks with European counterparts under the auspices of the EU-Japan Industrialists Round Table.

As co-chairman of the group with Société Générale de Belgique's Etienne Davignon, Sekimoto has ambitions for the informal talking shop.

“To get rid of these kinds of worries, we need to deepen the mutual understanding between Japan and the EU and even involve US business in our discussions to develop a trilateral understanding,” he said.

European businesses operating in Japan are worried that the hard-won bilateral agreements governing trade between Japan and the US over items such as glassware and car components have made Japanese importers happier to buy US goods for fear of retaliation.

Sekimoto denied this. “At NEC, if we see good products we would like to buy, we would do so regardless of the country of origin,” he said.

Despite the continuation of the EU's large trade deficit with Japan - pegged at 18.5 billion ecu in 1994 - the European Commission is convinced that its softly-softly approach to opening Japan's markets works.

Early last week, the Commission presented an updated list of Japanese rules it wants repealed or modified to smooth the path of European exporters and potential investors.

But while avowedly pro-deregulation during his meeting with the European industrialists, Sekimoto played down the need for further drastic changes.

“It is often said that deregulation is needed for foreign companies to export to the Japanese market,” he said.

“While it is true there are certain regulations in place to hinder exports to Japan, that relates to very special items like the food and agricultural products. In the area of manufactured goods, I think our deregulation is almost complete in terms of access to the Japanese market.”

The NEC chairman is equally unworried by the access offered to Japanese companies in Europe. “In Europe, the barriers are coming down,” he said, pointing to the liberalisation of the telecommunications and audiovisual markets in the EU. “Japanese manufacturers are winning very good business opportunities in this market.”

Japan's major complaint until last week had been a decision within the EU to classify CD-ROMs, a format for storing computer-readable data on a compact disk, under the category for colour television products rather than computer or consumer electronics goods for customs purposes.

This meant they attracted a 14&percent; duty rather than the 3.9&percent; applicable to computer components.

With Japan poised to file a complaint with the World Customs Organisation, Industry Commissioner Martin Bangemann told the Round Table meeting that the EU would offer to suspend the tariff on CD-ROMs until the classification problem was resolved.

Before the next meeting of the Round Table in Tokyo next October, Sekimoto will be overseeing the work of a group aiming to set up an information network between the 60 members of the pact.