EU calls on Japan to create environment to foster investment.

TOKYO, Oct. 26 Kyodo

The European Union (EU) on Thursday called on Japan to improve its business environment for investors and establish an independent regulatory body to ensure active competition in the telecommunications field, Japanese and EU officials said.

Headed by Fernando Valenzuela, deputy director general for external relations of the European Commission, an EU delegation also demanded that Japan's competition policy under the antimonopoly law be strictly enforced to eliminate antitrust violations.

The demands were made during a meeting in Tokyo on bilateral dialogue regarding regulatory reforms. Both parties submitted proposals for regulatory reforms, but talk Thursday focused on the EU submission, a Japanese government official said.

The two sides agreed to meet in Brussels in the early part of next year to discuss Japan's proposal, which includes demands for the easing of EU regulations on foreign lawyers' business activities and the lowering of fees for permits to conduct communications business in EU countries.

The official said the EU's continued demand for cuts to the interconnection fees that Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. (NTT) charges its competitors for access to its local networks was not taken up in detail, but it was included in the written proposal.

The Japanese team was led by the Foreign Ministry's Economic Bureau Director General Hitoshi Tanaka, who was joined by representatives from 13 other ministries and agencies, including the Finance Ministry and the Ministry of International Trade and Industry.