JAPAN: Pressure continues to mount on Tokyo...

JAPAN: Pressure continues to mount on Tokyo to cut its soaring trade surplus with the European Community. The president of the European Community Commission, Jacques Delors, last week asked Japan to accept trade “equilibrium of costs and benefits,” said Bruno Dethomas, Delors’ spokesman. That means that Japan, widening its focus from the United States to try to seek a bigger share of European markets, should restrain exports to maintain good relations with the EC, said an EC official who requested anonymity. Meanwhile, U.S. trade negotiators warned that Japan must make urgent efforts to open itself further to foreign investment and trade or be hurt by rising protectionist sentiment in other industrialized nations.