To Meet GATT, Japan Likely to End Limits on Exports to U.S.

TOKYO — Japan is likely to end its voluntary restraints on exports to the United States to comply with the global trade agreement concluded earlier this week, a government spokesman said Friday.

Japan now maintains voluntary quotas on exports of autos, machine tools and textiles to the United States under bilateral arrangements negotiated to defuse trade disputes.

But such measures are invalid under the new Uruguay Round accord of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, said Sadaaki Numata, a Foreign Ministry spokesman.

“There is this overall agreement to prohibit and eliminate these so-called gray-area measures like voluntary export restraints,” Numata said. “In principle, these measures are to be eliminated within four years after the coming into effect of the overall agreement” in 1995.

The impact of ending the export quotas on trade volume is unclear. Japan has not filled its voluntary quota on car exports since the late 1980s because of slumping sales in the U.S. market. Higher sticker prices, driven up by the stronger yen, are likely to make Japanese cars, as well as other products, much less competitive in the future.

Autos and auto parts account for 75% of Japan’s trade surplus with the United States and have been the focus of much of the attention on voluntary restraints.

A U.S. official in Tokyo said the question of how GATT affects voluntary restraint measures is likely to be addressed in ongoing “framework” trade talks between the United States and Japan.