INTERNATIONAL

New Trade Minister Says Japan Must Open Up: In a departure from the defensive stance assumed by his predecessors, Hiroshi Kumagai has spoken out about the need to open his country’s “extremely closed” markets. But Kumagai said he remains opposed to U.S. requests to set numerical targets for increasing imports. “Japanese markets are extremely closed in invisible ways,” he said in an interview published in Nihon Keizai Shimbun, a leading economic daily. “Our ways must be corrected if Japanese business hopes to survive in the international community.” It remains unclear how much sway Kumagai will have in influencing the policies adopted by the powerful Trade Ministry.