Japanese Firms Try to Ease Trade Tensions
Japan’s business leaders, apparently alarmed by the paralysis gripping their national government, are starting to take measures on their own aimed at easing trade problems with the United States and other countries.
The Keidanren, the powerful federation of economic organizations, decided last week to set up its own agency to help foreign executives experiencing difficulties in exporting goods to Japan. Meanwhile, major manufacturing companies are stepping up their own importing efforts in a bid to ease trade tensions.
In the past, Japanese business leaders have counted on government bureaucrats to handle trade problems and fend off complaints from foreign competitors about unfair trade practices.
However, as the country’s trade surpluses have persisted despite the revaluation of the yen, it has become more difficult for the bureaucrats to satisfy foreigners. Also, the deterioration of Japan’s political leadership in recent months has left the bureaucracy uncertain about the direction of trade policy.
Officials are concerned, for example, about how to handle forthcoming negotiations with the United States on structural barriers to trade. In the current political climate, with parties trying harder than ever to appeal to public opinion, no one is prepared to make concessions on sensitive issues such as trading practices.
At a Keidanren seminar near Tokyo last Thursday, Akio Morita, chairman of Sony and a vice chairman of Keidanren, noted that many foreign businessmen claimed that nothing was done about complaints that they made to the government-run Office of the Trade Ombudsman. The OTO, set up in 1982, has handled only 370 cases to date, and only one-third of them have led to any action.
The Keidanren accepted Morita’s suggestion that their own complaints body be set up and that advertisements be placed in major U.S. magazines to publicize its existence.
Among other signs of business concern about trade friction, a number of large companies are stepping up their importing efforts and avoiding any increase in exports, despite the yen’s recent weakening trend. For example, exports of motor vehicles fell 0.1% in the first half of 1989 to 3.06 million, according to figures published last week by the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Assn.
Also, Matsushita Electric Industrial, the giant consumer and industrial electronics group, said earlier this month that it would double its imports of parts and manufactured goods to $2.8 billion by 1993.
