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currently taking place in London but was not expected to result in significant progress.
NFIDEN
I
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Prime
inister's Visit to Japan
9-22 September 1989
THE PRIME MINISTER said that she had visited Japan from 19
22 September. She had had discussions with the Japanese ime Minister, Mr Kaifu, and other senior Japanese political figures. The new Prime Minister seemed
tent, firmly in control and more outward-looking than My predecessors, though perhaps lacking some of their grayas. The former Prime Minister, Mr Takeshita, whom she had also met, was clearly very influential behind the scenes. In her discussions with Mr Kaifu she had taken up the question of additional seats for British firms on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. She had reminded Mr Kaifu that he was the fourth Japanese Prime Minister with whom she had found it necessary to raise this issue. In reply, Mr Kaifu had given assurances that the additional seats were likely to be made available in the next six months to one year. It seemed unlike that Mr Kaifu would have given this assurance if he had been confident that the Stock Exchange would agree in her speech at a dinner on 19 September for leading enese industrialists she had listed the many barriers which still existed to access to Japanese markets. She made clear that if Japan was not open to imports from Britain and other countries, then these countries would not willing to be open to products from Japan. The Japanese industrialists had taken this well. They had listed the measures which had been taken to increase foreign imports into Japan. These were very small compared with the enormous trace balances in Japan's favour with major European countries. Japanese government was evidently anxious to resume trading with China. The main speaker at the preceding industrialists' dinner had been the Chinese Prime Minister, Li Peng. The Japanese had sent a former Foreign Minister, Mr Ito, to Peking where he had met Chairman Deng Xiaoping. Chairman Derg had assured Mr Ito that he wanted a speedy resumption(of trade between China and Japan but had tried to play down the tragic events on Tienanmen Square.
Continuing, the PRIME MINISTER said the Japanese ernment often tried to reduce the effect of concessions foreign exporters by promoting local counterpart product with lower tax rates.
over
The case of look-alike whiskies
a striking example. The Japanese were worried that some governments in the European Community were beginning claim that there was too much Japanese investment in Britain. She had told them firmly that they did not need to be deterred from investing in Britain. Representatives of the Fujitsu company had argued that unless there was
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