Noda seeks TPP policy by November summit

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda will try to come up with a policy on joining negotiations for a trans-Pacific free-trade pact before he leaves for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Hawaii in November, sources said.

Noda will soon convene a meeting of his key Cabinet ministers to resume the coordination process for the talks, the sources said. The work on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, as the U.S.-led pact is called, was meant to be finished by last June but was suspended by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

Noda's crew is apparently divided over the matter. Noda is apparently in favor of joining the talks, but Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Michihiko Kano is reluctant because the pact is certain to put pressure on Japan to open up its protected and politically sensitive agriculture market.

Among other key ministers, trade chief Yukio Edano, speaking to reporters during a visit to Singapore last month, supported joining the talks.

Singapore is one of nine countries engaged in the talks. Those countries have set a goal of achieving a broad accord for the TPP agreement when APEC's leaders gather for an annual summit starting Nov. 12.

Noda, who met with U.S. President Barack Obama last month in New York, is expected to clarify his government's stance on the U.S.-led trade initiative when he meets Obama again on the sidelines of APEC, the sources said.

KYODO

Business leaders in Kyoto on Sunday urged the government to make all-out efforts to lessen the severity of the disaster reconstruction tax it is planning.

"Honestly speaking, I cannot see how the government can impose heavier taxes on corporations while the economy is in such bad shape," Yoshio Tateishi, chairman of the Kyoto Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said at a meeting with economic and fiscal policy minister Motohisa Furukawa and members of local business groups.

The comment came as the government last week announced a plan to raise income, corporate and other taxes for a limited period to finance the reconstruction of disaster-hit areas and businesses in eastern Japan.

Tateishi said the government should reduce the rate of the tax hikes as much as possible by selling off assets and other means.

Furukawa said he would try.

"The government will do its best to reduce the rate of tax hikes," he said.

But "Japan is in the worst fiscal condition of all the developed countries, and we cannot achieve stable economic growth without addressing the problem," he added.

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