U.S., Japan Fail to Finalize New Microchip Trade Pact
U.S. and Japanese negotiators narrowed some of their differences but failed this week to agree on a new pact on microchip trade, a Japanese trade official said Friday.
“There was progress but no conclusion,” the Ministry of International Trade and Industry official said.
Senior officials trying to hammer out a new accord to replace a 1986 pact set to expire in July met here this week to iron out differences over market share, trade sanctions and ways to prevent dumping, or selling below cost.
“There was no conclusion on market share, on the sanctions or on dumping,” the MITI official said.
The pact, in which Tokyo pledged not to sell microchips at below cost overseas and to improve foreign firms’ chances to sell in Japan, has been a source of prolonged squabbling over a document in which both sides acknowledged a U.S. target of a 20% foreign market share by 1991.
Japan has denied a commitment, but the United States regards the document as a pledge.
Washington wants the 20% target spelled out in the main agreement, a demand Japanese officials have said they would consider as long as it is a benchmark and not a guaranteed figure.
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