Japan, U.S. Fail to Resolve Dispute Over Fees

Japan and the United States failed to reach accord in a telecommunications spat on promoting competition and slashing Japanese connection fees, a Japanese official said. Japanese and U.S. officials held three days of talks aimed at resolving the issue, currently the thorniest between the two powers on the trade front. “A considerable gap remains,” a Japanese Foreign Ministry official said. He said the two sides would try to resolve the issue by the end of March. Failure to iron out differences over the size of planned cuts in connection fees charged by Japan’s incumbent monopoly, Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp., forced the two sides to extend talks an extra day. NTT, still 59% government-owned, is under intense U.S. pressure to slash interconnection fees for carriers using its networks. Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Richard Fisher had warned earlier that high connection fees were dealing a harsh blow to Japan’s international competitiveness.