INTERNATIONAL

EU Sees Japan Trade Discrimination: The European Commission welcomed a narrowing of the European Union’s chronic trade deficit with Japan, but expressed concern that Tokyo was discriminating in favor of goods from the United States. John Richardson, head of the commission’s unit for relations with Japan, said Japan’s trade surplus with the EU had fallen by 29.7% in the first six months of this year compared to the same period of 1993. But a commission statement stressed concern that trade talks between Japan and the U.S. had resulted in a series of discriminatory decisions by Japanese importers in favor of U.S. goods, to the detriment of European goods.