Major Nations Report Progress at GATT Talks : Trade: Representatives of 27 countries are meeting to gauge the status of reform efforts.

Major nations edged closer to agreement Thursday on ways to cut tariffs and liberalize global trade, but large disputes remained on changes that would satisfy rich and poor nations alike, Japanese officials said.

Some progress was made after the first day of a two-day meeting here of 27 members of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. The participating members, from both developing and industrial nations, had met to chart the status of a four-year reform effort launched in 1986.

With one year left to go in that effort, “the developing countries crossed a bridge,” a Japanese Foreign Ministry official said. He noted that there was a new willingness among poorer countries to discuss dropping trade barriers in such services as banking and telecommunications.

“Until now, they had even refused to discuss it,” he said. “They have started to negotiate, even though their positions are far apart from ours (the industrial countries).”

He said the 27 countries, representative of GATT’s 97 member countries, showed new flexibility on methods to cut tariffs by the one-third agreed upon when talks first opened in Uruguay. He gave no details.

At the same time, Washington was criticized at the meeting for pressing trade issues outside the global trading body.

The complaints, leveled by Japan and the European Community, said Washington should abide by GATT’s rules for dispute settlement.

Japanese Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu said in welcoming remarks that while trade was threatened by protectionism, “the GATT, when correctly interpreted and properly applied, provides an effective means to counter this.”

EC Commissioner for External Relations Frans Andriessen said, “Some contracting parties may think that they can better defend their trade interests by having recourse to another trade policy system.”

The references were to Washington’s use of the “Super 301” section of its 1988 trade law to threaten sanctions against nations that it judges to practice unfair trading.

Using 301, the United States last May cited Japan, India and Brazil as unfair traders for keeping some of their markets closed to American businesses.

Andriessen was also referring to the U.S. use of bilateral negotiations to cut tariffs.

A U.S. official rejected the charges of unilateralism and cited some progress in efforts to find a way to cut tariffs in keeping with the one-third pledge.

He said Trade Representative Carla A. Hills had suggested that each GATT nation could make proposals by January on how they would meet the challenge of the one-third reduction.

Washington has backed a plan whereby each nation would unilaterally negotiate tariff cuts with each of its trading partners, rather than accept across-the-board cuts.