Europe may shift focus away from Japan: EU

Europe may shift focus away from Japan: EU

TOKYO (Reuter): A senior European Union official warned on
Tuesday that Europe might shift its business focus from Japan to
other booming Asian economies as the trade balance with Japan
remains badly skewed.

Europe had a strong interest in the so-called "Asia boom" with
much of its focus on China, members of the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Vietnam, EU Ambassador to
Japan Jorn Keck said.

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

"These are the new frontiers with the promise of great future
opportunities," Keck told a Tokyo news conference.

Although relations with Japan would remain a priority,
Europe's shift to other Asian countries could "carry the risk of
eclipsing European interest in Japan", he said.

"We in the European Commission nevertheless take the view that
any Asia strategy that does not keep Japan in focus would be
flawed," he added.

He also urged Japan to buy more aircraft, aircraft engines and
telecommunications and medical equipment from the European Union
(EU) to help reduce the trade imbalance.

"It is politically important that we should be able to report
some visible success stories in the area of what we call the 'big
ticket items'," Keck said.

By "big ticket items", he said he meant aircraft, aircraft
engines and telecommunication and medical equipment.

"European companies are making sustained and credible efforts
to enter this market," said Keck, who heads the delegation of the
European Commission in Japan.

The EU's trade deficit with Japan dropped 18 percent to about
US$22 billion in calendar 1994, he said.

"However, the bilateral deficit is still too big for comfort,
and spectacular success in big sales items has often eluded us,"
he said.

The EU would always prefer to settle the trade issue through
negotiations, Keck said.

"The EU's policy of good relations with Japan does not mean
that we have renounced our right to press trade issues where we
feel we have a just cause and where we can make a credible case
or to defend ourselves," he said, without elaborating.