Brussels, 16/03/2012 (Agence Europe) - The scoping exercise that began at the EU-Japan summit of 28 May 2011 (see EUROPE 10389) for the EU-Japan free trade talks is continuing. Danish Trade Minister Pia Olsen Dyhr said in Brussels on Friday, following a meeting with her EU27 counterparts, that progress was being made but issues remain to be solved and Japan has to make a tangible gesture. EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht said that the EU's position has always been that it wants the Japanese to be able to take decisions about non-tariff barriers and it is in connection with this that the EU will decide whether the time has come to end the scoping exercise. He pointed out that some decisions have been put into practice but Japan has to do more in terms of non-tariff barriers and access to public procurement markets. On the latter issue, Olsen Dyhr pointed out that Tokyo had made commitments in December 2011 in the updated WTO agreement on public procurement. She said that she had travelled to Japan last month to make the EU's position clear and had invited the Japanese government to take action.
The EU and Japan agreed last year to expand their economic ties against a backdrop of problems for the Japanese economy, badly hit by tsunamis and the huge nuclear power station catastrophe in March 2011. (EH/transl.fl)