Japanese Reforms Seen Easing Import Barriers

The Japanese government moved Tuesday to simplify its complicated system of standards and product certification, which foreigners have attacked as a barrier to doing business in Japan. It also announced that it will take steps to buy more foreign products.

However, the announcement spelled out only nine specific reforms, compared to the 200 that the government said had been sought by foreign countries.

Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone told a meeting of his Cabinet and leaders of his Liberal Democratic Party that even more must be done to open Japan’s markets to foreign suppliers because threats of protectionist action, particularly by the U.S. Congress, have put Japan’s “future on the line.”

He ordered the Cabinet to take additional steps by July 30, when the final outline of his three-year “action program” is scheduled to be announced.

(Members of a U.S. congressional delegation in Japan, who were given an early glimpse of the draft, said they doubt that the final plan will contain sufficiently comprehensive measures to defuse protectionist legislation in Washington, the Associated Press reported.)

Auto Reform Criticized

Two party officials and two Cabinet ministers echoed Nakasone’s criticism of the steps announced Tuesday.

Masumi Ezaki, chairman of the party’s Commission for International Economic Policy Countermeasures, criticized as inadequate a minor reform in Japan’s system for inspecting imported autos for both safety and pollution standards.

Nakasone, who had complained that the inspection of Japanese cars entering the United States is done at the rate of 100 cars a minute, while the process takes days in Japan, had ordered the Transportation Ministry to simplify the procedure.

Japan does allow foreign auto makers to get “type approval” on some models, but most imports are dealt with on a car-by-car basis. Only one American manufacturer, General Motors, has obtained type approval, according to a Foreign Ministry official.

This official, defending Japan’s inspection system, said the number of cars recalled for defects in the United States, where manufacturers themselves certify that they have met government safety standards, is 9.4 times the number recalled in Japan.

Another of the changes announced Tuesday involves cosmetics. Instead of requiring a license, renewable annually, for every cosmetic product sold in Japan, the government will license cosmetic products by category. The Foreign Ministry official said this will cut in half--to 20,000--the number of licenses issued every year by the Health and Welfare Ministry.

On electrical appliances, the number of items subjected to safety inspections will be reduced by about 70 from the present 425. The government also promised to adopt, within three years, safety standards set by the International Electrotechnical Commission for all electrical appliances.

For the first time, Japanese representatives of foreign food companies will be appointed to the standards-setting committee of the Agriculture Ministry. In May, the government appointed two Japanese representatives of foreign firms to the committee that sets standards for telecommunications equipment.

The government also promised to remove quarantine obstacles to imports of New Zealand cherries, West German ham and sausage, mangoes from the Philippines and cut flowers from the Netherlands.

Other promises of reform came in the form of general statements of principle. These include reducing the number of standards themselves, allowing more self-certification by manufacturers, accepting foreign test data and setting time limits for certifying quality and safety.

Most of the measures announced Tuesday amounted to a follow-up on revisions that Parliament made in 1983 of 17 laws on inspection and certification procedures.

At first, officials in Washington praised Nakasone for tackling the problem of Japan’s complicated procedures, but they became critical again after the 1983 amendments failed to simplify ministry ordinances issued to implement them.

The government promised Tuesday to increase the level of its procurement under competitive bidding, which is now 60%. To give foreign manufacturers a better chance to participate in bidding on government purchases--the amount foreign bidders are eligible to bid for is estimated at $1.2 billion a year--the deadline for submitting bids will be extended to 40 days from the 30-day standard set by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. And the rules for certifying eligible bidders, which are now set bureau by bureau even within a single ministry, will be unified for all branches of the government.

Keiichi Konaga, vice minister of international trade and industry, told the Cabinet and party leaders that his ministry will also try to have ready by July 30 specific measures aimed at promoting government and private imports of an additional $4.4 billion in foreign goods by March, 1987.

Tuesday’s measures are the third in a series of market-opening steps that Nakasone has taken since he assumed office in 1982. They were to have been announced at the end of the month but were moved up because Nakasone is to leave Friday for Europe and Foreign Minister Shintaro Abe is leaving today for Southeast Asia. This enables them to take with them evidence that Japan is moving to open its markets.

In another development, the Associated Press reported from Paris that Japanese representatives to a ministerial meeting of the International Energy Agency, a 21-member organization of the main non-Communist oil-consuming nations, agreed to open up Japan’s markets to imports of petroleum products from refineries being built in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

European countries struggling to reduce overcapacity in their refining industries had become increasingly concerned that output from the new refining complexes would flood their already saturated markets. The Common Market has made strenuous diplomatic efforts in recent months to persuade Japan to remove import barriers for petroleum products and so spread the burden.