Japan to Offer Trade Package of $1 Billion : East Europe: Prime Minister Kaifu is ready to depart for the Continent with aid for Poland and Hungary.

Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu is scheduled to depart for Europe today on a busy 10-day tour during which he is expected to visit the Berlin Wall, endorse peaceful reunification of Germany and offer more than $1 billion in trade financing to Poland and Hungary.

In a show of Japanese support for economic and political reforms in Eastern Europe, Kaifu will announce his government’s decision to provide $500 million in Japan Export-Import Bank loans to both Poland and Hungary, according to local news reports.

These government-backed commercial loans are in addition to a $150-million “untied” aid loan to Poland, announced by Tokyo in late November as part of a multilateral $1-billion package aimed at stabilizing the Polish currency and economy.

Japan also will give Poland $25 million in emergency food aid, supply Poland and Hungary with $25 million each in technical assistance and extend the government’s export insurance program to cover expanded trade with both countries, the news reports said.

7 Nations on Tour

Kaifu will visit seven countries during his brief tour, conducting perfunctory meetings with political leaders in West Germany, Belgium, France, Britain, Italy, Poland and Hungary. It will be his second overseas trip since becoming prime minister in August and appears largely designed for domestic consumption, bolstering Kaifu’s tenuous image as a statesman on the eve of a difficult parliamentary election next month.

Foreign Ministry officials said Kaifu will deliver a major policy speech in West Berlin on Tuesday, outlining Japan’s view of recent dramatic changes in the political and economic order of the socialist bloc. Tokyo has so far shown a generally restrained response toward the East-West thaw, noting that Soviet-inspired reforms have yet to have a tangible impact in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly in Cambodia and on the Korean Peninsula.

But Kaifu is expected to emphasize in his speech that democratization and market reforms in Eastern Europe have potentially profound implications for Asian security. Officials suggest he will also endorse the concept of a reunified Germany.

“We have sympathy with the tragedy of a divided country,” Tadashi Fujita, a Foreign Ministry official, told reporters. “We hope the problem can be resolved. . . .”

In a symbolic gesture, Kaifu will make his speech at a building that once housed the Imperial Japanese Embassy in Nazi Germany, Japan’s ally during World War II. The facility presently serves as the Japan-European Cultural Center but would likely revert to its former status as an embassy if the two Germanys reunified.

Yet trade issues, rather than geopolitical questions, are expected to color Kaifu’s agenda. Amid signs that the Soviet-led Comecon trading bloc is on its last legs, Japanese business leaders have expressed enthusiasm about promoting economic ties with Eastern Europe. Japanese officials also have raised concerns about maintaining global free trade and holding protectionism in check once the European Community combines into a single free market in 1992.