Businessmen want Japan to open its market

JAKARTA (JP): Southeast Asian businessmen yesterday urged Japan to open its domestic market to help reduce the gaping trade deficit between Japan and the region.

Businessmen from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) acknowledged that Japan had contributed significantly to the region's economic development, but said there was still a need to correct the trade deficit between the two.

They also asked their Japanese counterparts for increased assistance in the transfer of technology and in the financing of ASEAN's infrastructure development, emphasizing the importance of accelerating direct foreign investment into the region.

The ASEAN businessmen made the request at the closing of the 22nd annual meeting of ASEAN and Japanese businessmen.

The three-day meeting was attended by 63 people from Japan and 79 from the seven ASEAN countries, including Vietnam which joined the organization earlier this year.

Besides Vietnam, ASEAN groups Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.

Tadasu Toba, the co-chairman of the meeting's Pacific Resources Group, said the meeting saw Japanese businessmen urging their ASEAN counterparts to increase their competitiveness.

"This can be achieved through high savings, sound human resource development and the construction of proper infrastructure facilities," he said.

Toba said the aim of annual meetings between ASEAN and Japanese businessmen was to up-date each other on the comparative advantages of each participating nation.

Over the years Japan has enjoyed a trade surplus over most ASEAN countries. However, Toba noted a rapid increase in the export of products from ASEAN countries made with Japanese technical assistance.

"The increase not only applies for products exported to Japan, but to other countries as well," he said.

"The key issue is that ASEAN countries should be competitive enough to enter the Japanese market," Toba added.

Toba said he was confident Indonesia's controversial national car policy -- which the Japanese government plans to take to the World Trade Organization (WTO) for consultations -- would have little effect on other industries.

Indonesia's national car policy has been criticized as discriminatory because it favors a single company, PT Timor Putra Nasional, which is owned by President Soeharto's youngest son, Hutomo Mandala Putra.

"The Japanese are a people who think in a very, very long term... They are not likely to stop investments over a short period of time," he said.

"My company, for example, already has plans to establish three new plants here in Indonesia," said Toba, who is a senior executive at the monosodium glutamate manufacturer, Ajinomoto.

Japan, the European Union and the United States have filed complaints with the WTO and called for consultations and, possibly, arbitration.

The first ASEAN-Japanese Businessmen's Meeting was held in 1974 in Tokyo, Japan, as an initiative of the Keizai Doyukai, an influential economic organization in Japan.

Since then, the meeting has been held on an annual basis, with the next one to be held in Brunei next October. (pwn)