American trade expert urges Japan-U.S. open marketplace.TOKYO, Oct. 26 Kyodo Japan and the United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. should link up in creating an ''open marketplace'' in the next decade by rethinking their bilateral economic relationship, a leading U.S. trade analyst said Thursday. ''The time is ripe for a bold new initiative to recast re·cast tr.v. re·cast, re·cast·ing, re·casts 1. To mold again: recast a bell. 2. the U.S.-Japan economic relationship for the 21st century...more positive and productive,'' Bruce Stokes Stokes , William 1804-1878. British physician. Known especially for his studies of diseases of the chest and heart, he expanded on the observations of John Cheyne in describing the breathing irregularity now known as Cheyne-Stokes respiration. , a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is an influential and independent, nonpartisan foreign policy membership organization founded in 1921 and based at 58 East 68th Street (corner Park Avenue) in New York City, with an additional office in Washington, D.C. in New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of , said in a lecture to the Foreign Correspondents foreign correspondent n. A correspondent who sends news reports or commentary from a foreign country for broadcast or publication. Noun 1. Club of Japan in Tokyo. ''Washington and Tokyo should launch a joint initiative to create a U.S.-Japan open marketplace...and we should do that by the year 2010,'' he said. Stokes said new governments in the two countries must seize this opportunity as ''a new Japan is struggling to emerge.'' Although a more vibrant, sustainable Japanese economy has yet to take root and reform and restructuring in Japan have been ''sporadic and totally inadequate,'' foreign investment is on the rise, he said, adding Japanese companies This is a list of companies from Japan. Note that 株式会社 can be (and frequently is) read both kabushiki kaisha and kabushiki gaisha (with or without a hyphen). See that article for more details. are beginning to make long overdue changes and Tokyo has slowly begun to deregulate deregulate To reduce or eliminate control. One of the major forces in the financial markets in the 1970s and 1980s was the federal government's decision to deregulate interest rates. the structure of the economy. The initiative for an ''open marketplace'' -- defined as an area free of tariffs, with minimal regulatory barriers to trade investment and with increasing freedom to do business -- can meet the interests of both Japan and the U.S., Stokes said. For Japan, it has the potential to be ''plus-sum game,'' a turnaround from the zero-sum game Zero-Sum Game A situation in which one participant's gains result only from another participant's equivalent losses. The net change in total wealth among participants is zero the wealth is just shifted from one to another. in which Japan lost but the U.S. gained in economic cooperation, he said. ''Economic restructuring (in Japan) has been a long journey, a dark tunnel with no end in sight. The open marketplace initiative provides a light to the end of the tunnel,'' he said. On the U.S. side, a strong Japanese economy is needed to help realize global economic growth as the world cannot afford to apply any longer one economic engine and Japan is ''America's primary economic and strategic partner in Asia,'' he said. Since the economy is now at the center of U.S.-Japan relations, the proposed open marketplace dialogue should in principle cover anything, including politically difficult, if not impossible, agricultural issues, Stokes said. He recommended the creation of a group of experts, consisting of business, labor and consumer leaders, former and current trade negotiators and members of the Diet and Congress, to define the scope of this initiative during a 10-year time frame. For such dialogue, political support is also essential, he added. In addition, Stokes urged Japan to actively engage in taking this opportunity to pursue a positive vision of the relationship, noting that in the past Tokyo has followed or resisted Washington's lead in bilateral economic relations. ''Now is the time for Tokyo to take the initiative,'' Stokes emphasized. ''If Americans believe the Japanese are sincere, it's much more likely that Washington will be ready to follow.'' |
|
||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion